


Candle In The Dark

by The_Fenspace_Collective



Series: Candle In The Dark: A Peculiar Saga of the Sea of Time [1]
Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Fenspace
Genre: Alien Space Bats, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Culture Shock, Gen, In-Jokes, Island In The Sea Of Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 91,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fenspace_Collective/pseuds/The_Fenspace_Collective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is the Inner Sphere - thousands of planets colonized by humankind. Once it was united under the Star League, but for the last three hundred years it has been consumed by savage wars... until a new force appeared - mysterious invaders known as the Fen... Hang on a second. I thought the invaders were the <b>Clans</b>, not the Fen. Who the hell are the Fen anyway?... You're serious. This is what we're going with? We're going to hang a multi-part holovid series on <b>this?</b> Is it too late to renegotiate my contract?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Invasion of the Saucer Men

### The Inner Sphere, 3022

 _Excerpt from “_ _The Sixth World_ ” _by Sun-Tzu Liao (Capella Union University Press, Sian, 3085):_

“As long as there have been travelers, there have been traveler’s tales. Often fanciful, sometimes fabricated stories of what lies over the horizon have enthralled humanity for the entirety of recorded civilization. Our distant ancestors told tales of the mythical tribes and strange beasts living beyond the mountains, or across deserts and oceans. When the frontier moved up and away from Mother Terra the stories followed. Alien civilizations became the stock and trade of storytellers; every spacer had a story about the alien ruins on some desolate rock, the nonhumans he saw walking around a few jumps off the periphery’s edge. Very few people believed in these stories, of course. No matter how often the tellers swore their particular story was the truth the sensible and rational among the peoples of the Inner Sphere rolled their eyes and dismissed them as entertaining lies.

In the spring and summer of 3022 people stopped rolling their eyes and began, just a little, believing in the impossible.

Starting, appropriately enough, on April Fool’s Day 3022 verifiable sightings of unidentified spacecraft, backed up by sensor readings and telescopic images, increased fifty-fold. These sightings happened everywhere in the Inner Sphere and Periphery over major and minor worlds alike. Initial suspicion fell, as it inevitably did, on a secret project of the Successor Lords. Some secret project or chunk of lost Star League technology recovered and put to work in the endless game for the Cameron throne. But those who believed this were swiftly disabused; the mystery spacecraft were too small, too fast and appeared in places where ordinary jumpships and dropships couldn’t go by themselves. The next rumor, again as inevitable as the galaxy’s spin, held forth that this was a reconnoiter by the long-missing Star League Defense Force. Multiple planets threatened to revolt at the first hint of SLDF forces, which put the Successor States on edge, feeding more resentment at the sorry state of affairs in the Inner Sphere and maintaining the cycle of fear and anger.

No nation in known space managed to intercept one of these UFOs, they stayed well out of orbital weapons range and vanished before any interceptor could reach them. The invasion reached its crescendo on 7 August 3022 in the New Avalon system, when one of the UFOs did something completely unexpected…”

~***~

**New Avalon System  
7 August 3022**

The ship exploded back into real space, blasting into the New Avalon system riding a wave of electromagnetic energy as it plunged sunward, unimaginable energies pushing it forward from a relative standing start to almost one-tenth the speed of light in seconds. Riding outward from the ship, the rush of energy displaced by its arrival from hyperspace washed up against the shores of planets, moons and asteroids. Sensors fired off automatic warnings; alarms and klaxons blared through command posts and bunkers, technicians and soldiers hurried through their drills, tracking telescopes and scanners to the calculated arrival point.

They saw nothing but the same four _Merchant_ class whales basking in the sunlight at the zenith point. The first stunned transmissions came in moments later: _It was small and fast, riding a pillar of light and moving like a bat out of Hell. Insane speeds, impossible accelerations! Too small to be a warship, it was like an aerospace fighter. An ASF with a_ _ **jump drive**_ _!_

The generals dismissed the first report as hysteria. Then more reports came flooding in, all tinged with the same incredulous panic. The generals dismissed these reports too. Traffic controllers demanded results, or heads would roll. Telescopes searched and every sensor in the New Avalon system tracked to this one point, determined to solve the mystery.

Ten minutes after its arrival the tiny ship was eighteen million kilometers away from where it had arrived and charging inward, riding a glorious blue column of expanding gas. One lucky scopes operator saw the comet’s tail where no comet should be, moving faster than any comet ever could. That one became many as the whole might of New Avalon’s ATC focused on the interloper. Deep in the Fox’s Den men with years of training and experience puzzled over the data coming in. Was this even possible? Maybe it was a sensor glitch, or perhaps somebody’s idea of an exercise. Should we inform the First Prince? Not until we have more information, it might still be an error of some sort.

A single voice cut through the generals’ low murmuring: “Incoming transmission on wideband!” The Den’s communication officer cried out. “My God, it’s drowning out everything!” The generals looked up as the speakers crackled, hissing like an angry snake, popping and crashing over a clash of metallic noise that might have been music.

“ _GOOD MORNING, NEW AVALON!_ ”The radio cried in the high, clear voice of a young girl having the time of her life. “ _This is Radio KAOS, and we’re here to ROCK. YOUR. WORLD!_ ”

The entire Den went silent at this proclamation, unable to process what was happening. One general had just enough presence of mind to snap “Triangulate that signal!” at the shocked comms officer, and the poor man jumped like he’d been electrocuted.

“ _Here’s a favorite of ours for all our friends on New Avalon,_ ” the girl on the radio nattered happily. “ _This is The Offspring, with ‘Have You Ever.’_ ” The slightest of pauses and the whole of New Avalon was filled with a noise far more stunning than any simple gloat or demand. The Marshal of the Armies burst out of his office just in time to hear:

>   
>  _Falling, I’m falling_   
>  _Falling, I’m falling…_   
> 

The whole world paused in confusion. It wasn’t a demand for surrender, nor a threat nor a declaration of war. It wasn’t anything sane or expected, it was simply music.

>   
>  _Have you ever walked through a room, but it was more like the room passed around you?_   
>  _Like there was a leash around your neck that pulled you through?_   
> 

It a driving beat and a catchy tune. It was ancient and fresh, unlike anything anyone had ever heard before. A radar operator found herself nodding along to the beat and quickly recovered before her supervisors noticed

> _Have you ever been at someplace recognizing everybody’s face, until you realized that there was no one there you knew?_

First Prince Hanse Davion rocked back in his chair, the daily briefing overridden by the wailing of guitars and loud, angry voices. Without a single further word the Prince and his loyal retinue swept out of the room and down the passage towards the Den. Either somebody was playing a weird joke and heads would roll, or somebody was assaulting the heart of the Federated Suns and heads would also roll. The Prince was dead certain that heads would roll for this, one way or the other.

>   
>  _Well I know…_   
>  _Some days my soul’s confined and out of mind._   
>  _Sleep forever._   
>  _(I know…)_   
>  _Some days I’m so outshined and out of time._   
>  _Have you ever?_   
> 

>   
>  _Falling, I’m falling…_   
>  _Falling, I’m falling…_   
> 

Frantic, the Den contacted the New Avalon Institute of Science on a hard line, trying to find a way to cut through the interference. The dean of the Engineering college insisted that a wideband transmission violated all the known laws of physics, then determined to figure it out anyway. In the Marshal’s mind every single neuron screamed attack. There couldn't be any other possible explanation. And yet… anyone capable of doing this could do far more – and far worse – than simply play strange music.

>   
>  _Have you ever buried your face in your hands ‘cause no one around you understands or has the slightest idea what it is that makes you be?_   
>  _Have you ever felt like there was more like someone else was keeping score and what could make you whole was simply out of reach?_   
>  _Well I know…_   
> 

A listening post on an asteroid not far from zenith picked up the signal and regarded it with dubious eyes. It was heavily red-shifted, enough that whatever it came from was moving at a fair percentage of light speed.

“Got to be an equipment fault,” the post commander concluded. “Nothing can move like that.”

The radio operator nodded along. “Should I report it?” The commander shrugged as he turned away for his meal.

“Yeah, might as well,” he grunted. “Good for a laugh if nothing else.”

>   
>  _Someday I’ll try again and not pretend._   
>  _This time forever_   
>  _(I know…)_   
>  _Someday I’ll get it straight but not today._   
>  _Have you ever?_   
> 

>   
>  _Falling, I’m falling…_   
>  _Falling, I’m falling…_   
> 

Similar posts from skeptical listening posts trickled into the Den as the song played on. “That’s the third one, Marshal,” the radioman reported. “All stations are reporting the target moving at, um.”

“Um?” The marshal said, brows crawling up his scalp. “What is ‘um’ in kilometers per second, Lieutenant?”

“Sorry sir,” the operator said hastily. “It’s just… this can’t be right. All stations are estimating the target is moving at one-tenth the speed of light.” Someone swore softly. There was no sense in calling it a drill or a malfunction. Whatever it was, it was indisputably _there_.

“Where is it?” the marshal demanded.

“Just under eight AU out. The computer will have a vector for us in a second.”

>   
>  _(Falling, I’m falling…)_   
>  _Some days my soul’s confined and out of mind._   
>  _Sleep forever._   
>  _(Falling, I’m falling…)_   
>  _Some days my darkest friend is me again._   
>  _Have you ever?_   
>  _(Falling, I’m falling…)_   
>  _Someday I’ll try again and not pretend._   
>  _This time forever_   
>  _(Falling, I’m falling…)_   
>  _Someday I’ll get it straight but not today._   
>  _Have you ever?_   
> 

The First Prince pounded down the corridors like a madman. Appearances be damned if his world – his throneworld – was under attack, especially if the enemy was close enough to flood the airwaves like they were. He burst into the Den riding a draft of cold air. Everybody felt the rush of air and turned to see him enter. “ _Report!_ ” The word exploded out of Hanse, snapping the assembled officers of their reverie. Around them, the music shifted down, slowing from a frenetic pace to a hard, angry beat.

“Approximately seventy minutes ago an unknown ship jumped in at the zenith point,” the marshal said briskly, trying to maintain military composure despite the insanity of the situation. “It began broadcasting almost immediately after arrival, and based on our analysis of the signal the ship is moving at one-tenth lightspeed.” He paused. “More to the point, if reports are correct it’s been moving at that speed since almost the moment after the jump.”

Hanse blinked. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“I’m only reporting what our sensors are telling us,” the marshal replied stolidly.

“Do we know what it is?”

“My Prince, we… no,” the marshal admitted. “The warbook is calling it ‘Unknown – Possibly Nonhuman.’ Obviously that’s wrong but-”

“Yes, of course,” Hanse said. “And where is it going?” As if he had to ask. The Prince and the Marshal of the Armies turned to face the radar control station, whose operator suddenly found himself in the hottest seat on the planet.

“Your Highness,” the operator gulped nervously. “It’s on a direct course for New Avalon.”

>   
> _When the truth walks away, everybody stays._  
>  ‘ _Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay._  
>  _So if you walk away, who is gonna stay?_  
>  ‘ _Cause I’d like to think the world is a better place._  
>  _When the truth walks away, everybody stays._  
>  ‘ _Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay._  
>  _So if you walk away, who is gonna stay?_  
>  ‘ _Cause I’d like to make the world be a better place._  
> 

“Eleven and a half hours until it reaches orbit,” the marshal said quietly. “If its speed holds.”

Davion nodded. “Bring the AFFS to full alert,” he said. “I want options for dealing with this thing before it gets here.”

The marshal nodded. “Yes sir. However,” he ventured carefully, “I’m not entirely sure this is an attack.”

Hanse gave his highest-ranked general an odd look. “An unknown spacecraft is racing towards the planet, jamming planetary communications as it goes,” he said dryly, “and you _don’t_ think it’s an attack. Explain.”

>   
> _When the truth walks away, everybody stays._  
>  ‘ _Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay._  
>  _So if you walk away, who is gonna stay?_  
>  ‘ _Cause I’d like to think the world is a better place._  
>  _I’d like to leave the world as a better place._  
>  _I’d like to think the world…_  
> 

The song rolled down to its final notes, energy finally spent as the marshal considered his reply. “Well, they’re not being very subtle about being there, are they? Whoever they are, they want our attention. The broadcast is jamming some of our communications yes, but it’s just music. No demands, no declarations, just music. If they’re moving as fast as our sensors say they are then they’ve got transit drives far beyond the Star League, and they want us to know that too. Right now there’s nothing here that says attack – all they’ve done is be annoying.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Hanse replied skeptically. “I would rather be prudent in the meantime, Marshal.”

“As would I.”

“ _Now for one of my personal favorites,_ ” the girl’s voice came back as the song faded out. It was hard not to imagine some grinning teenager playing an elaborate prank on them all. “ _Next up is Iron Maiden with ‘Different Worlds.’ You’re listening to Mel’s Metal Hour on Radio KAOS!_ ” A crash of guitars marked the beginning of the new song, and Hanse and his generals shared a long-suffering glance. Eleven hours of this? It was going to be a long day…

>   
>  _You lead me on the path._   
>  _Keep showing me the way._   
>  _I feel a little lost._   
>  _A little strange today…_   
> 

~***~

 _Excerpt from “_ _The Sixth World_ ” _by Sun-Tzu Liao (Capella Union University Press, Sian, 3085):_

“The raid over New Avalon was the last significant UFO sighting of 3022. As quickly as they began verified sightings vanished like mist. Unverified sightings would continue well after the truth of the matter was finally made clear to the galaxy at large. This moment of revelation was still years in the future however; at the end of 3022 the puzzled inhabitants of known space were left wondering what, exactly, the hell all that fuss had been about.

No one in those early years of the thirty-first century truly believed that our worlds had been scrutinized and studied by intelligences stranger than man’s yet mortal as his own. In a thousand years of space travel humanity had never met their equals nor their superiors, and so they busied themselves with the mundanities of daily life, with the endless squabbles of the nobility and the schemes of the bourgeoisie, secure in their innate superiority over all life in the galaxy. Yet across the gulfs of space, intellects vast and warm and sympathetic regarded the empires we built with compassionate eyes, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against us. And so would come the great disillusionment.”

_Dr. Sun-Tzu Liao is Seldon Professor of Psychohistory at the Capella Union University. A member of the former ruling family, Dr. Liao served in the Union Armed Forces with distinction during the War of Two Terras. At night, he’s Batman._


	2. Dramatis Personae

### Everywhere, Then – Now

> _"History is not just one damn thing after another, it's the_ same _damn thing_ over and over. _"_ ~ Anonymous

~***~

_Excerpt from "_ _ The Tough Guide to the Sea of Time " by Anonymous (Internet distribution, 3030):_

"It isn't just that everything you know is wrong, it's that everything you know ain't nearly enough to make it out here in the big mean galaxy.

If you're reading this, that means you're a scrub fresh off the farm from some middle-of-nowhere backwater come to find your fortune, and now that you're right in the vortex you have no fucking clue as to what's going on. All you've got is a shiny clean Successor State-approved education and maybe a few tidbits of homespun wisdom your parents gave you. Your mind's all nicely scrubbed clean and ready to receive the party line, whichever party that might be. Unfortunately all the book-larnin' designed to make you a productive little cog in the great machine won't cut it here. The modern galaxy is a place with all sorts of demented wonders in it, and if you're going to hang on here in the Sea of Time my fine scrub, you're going to have to wise up quick. 

But don't worry. 

That's what fatherly Uncle Anon is going to help you with. 

Let's start with a history lesson: 

In the beginning – because we might as well go all the way – God leaves the oven on too long and it explodes, creating the Universe. Things cool down a little and become stars, planets, moons and other things. On a humdrum bit of rock a couple molecules figure out the whole self-replication thing and life begins. Evolution happens. Big lizards run around for a few million years, then die or turn into birds. Mammals take over; some of the mammals turn into monkeys. Some of the monkeys turn into humans; the humans discover fire and stone tools, at which point everything goes straight to hell. Civilizations rise, fall, and rise again. A guy got nailed to a tree for suggesting that niceness might win in the end. Wars, plagues. An Asian race invented a lot of neat stuff but failed to document it properly. More wars and plagues. A guy from a desert town tries improving on the nailed guy's ideas by adding sex and violence. Still more wars and plagues. The forced expropriation of two or three continents (depending on who's counting). The Scientific Revolution. The Industrial Revolution. Still more wars, and Godwin's Law is discovered. Nuclear weapons are developed, and a three-generation dick measuring contest begins. 

Now we come to a branch point, where things start getting weird. "What are you talking about, Uncle Anon?" I hear you say. Well, O scrub, allow me to get metaphysical on your ass.

History, see, is made of _choices_. Every choice we make – go right or left, chocolate or vanilla, blondes or redheads – creates a branch point. Off in one direction goes our history where we make one choice, and off in a completely different direction it goes when we make another. And this holds just as true for all the big decisions like wars and shit. Whenever we choose things the Universe changes. 

So in the history you learned in school – assuming that your teachers actually cared about ancient history instead of fluffing the Star League for the umpteenth time, but that's a subject we'll get back to later – the mighty Union of Soviet Socialist Republics held together and staggered on an extra two decades. And when it finally turned blue and fell over that led to the debatable glories of the Western Alliance and all the thunderingly stupid imperial policies that conjured the Inner Sphere into existence. 

However. 

In the universe three streets over and a little down the block, the USSR crashed at the tail end of the twentieth century. The guys in charge decided that gold-plated yachts sounded a lot better than planned economies and ditched Leninism for plutocracy, leaving the people who would've taken over the world as the Western Alliance smug and a little adrift. A couple kicks in the pants later and the world was stuck in a series of post-colonial wars that nobody claimed to want but couldn't give enough of a shit about to stop. 

And this is where things got really strange…"

~***~

> _"It's what humans are best at, pretending. It's probably why I like you. That neotenic ability to play at being what you're not. You advance by pretending."_ ~ 'ForestUUID,'  Potter Who and the Wossname's Thingummy(2013) 

_Excerpt from "_ _ A People's History of the Gernsback Expanse" _ _by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3124):_

"Despite its importance to the existence and continued survival of the Gernsback Expanse, even today nobody is exactly sure where handwavium comes from, who the initial inventor or discoverer was, nor how it was distributed across the surface of Tellus. There are hundreds of just-so stories involving the creation or discovery of handwavium, most of which involve the classical tropes of post-millennial Tellurian legends like alien encounters or vast government conspiracies. Regardless of the who or how, it is known that by the summer of 2006 TD handwavium's existence was publicly known and its presence was felt in underground tinkerer communities worldwide. These tinkerers were rooted in a loose conglomeration of hobbyists, empiricists and aficionados of science-fiction and fantasy media. These communities were tied together by the Internet, communicated mostly through anonymous or semi-anonymous messages and at no small legal risk traded handwavium strains among them and made the first real attempts at applying handwavium to various objects. Most of the major breakthroughs in modern handwavium-based technology can be traced back to these hobbyist communities.

In May of 2007 TD, the man known to posterity as 'Katz Schrodinger' applied handwavium to a small sailboat he named the _SS Uncertainty_ and became the first person to ride a handwaved vehicle into Tellus orbit. The flight of the _Uncertainty_ opened the floodgates: with tangible proof that it could be done, members of the hobbyist community created spacecraft of their own out of ground vehicles, aircraft, watercraft and sometimes just random assortments of junk. These intrepid explorers moved out into the solar system, and the ties that kept them loosely connected during the underground years strengthened. Within a year these fans of genre media were known worldwide as the Fen, and their new playground became known as Fenspace…" 

_Dr. Meryl Campbell is a history professor at the Gondor Free University, Gondor ASR, Arda system. Her speciality is pre-Event Tellurian history with a focus on the early development of Fenspace._

~***~ 

_Excerpt from "_ _The Third Succession War and the Uncertain Peace " by Sun-Tzu Liao (Capellan Union University Press, Sian, 3069):_

"Most official histories claim that the Third Succession War ended in 3025, just in time for the Last Succession War to erupt. Historians are by their nature in love with dates and the ability to draw lines around events, so the idea of one war ending and another beginning almost immediately makes for a neat little package for the books.

Unfortunately for historians reality doesn't always come so neatly wrapped up. The Third Succession War did not end in 3025, instead it trailed off in intensity starting at the turn of the millennium and slowly stuttered to a halt between 3015 and 3020. Some half-hearted raiding and covert actions would continue through to the beginning of the Last War but these were minor at best, no more than a few lances of battlemechs attacking border worlds and more often than not under cover of piracy. Large scale organized warfare between the major combatants in the Third War had ceased by 3010, and despite no formal armistice or treaty the Inner Sphere lapsed into a period that I call the Uncertain Peace. 

There was no decisive end to the Third War because the materiel and men necessary to achieve such an end no longer existed. The First and Second Wars were total in nature, designed to eliminate strategic resources like factories, shipyards and universities. By the time the Third War began the industrial and intellectual capacity of the Inner Sphere had been halved. By the time the Uncertain Peace began in the 3010s that capacity had been reduced by another third. Most of the worlds in the Inner Sphere and nearer Periphery were at least self-sustaining, but this was more due to the overwhelming need for limited autarky and a savage form of triage during the Succession Wars: planets that had no strategic advantage and could not at least feed and clothe themselves were abandoned, and not always evacuated. Some survived to rejoin galactic civilization; more did not. 

Despite the efforts of some in the Great Houses to stem the tide of destruction, like Hanse Davion's establishment of the New Avalon Institute of Science, Katrina Steiner's attempts at brokering a peace or the Magistracy of Canopus' iron hold on Star League medical technology, it seemed like that human civilization was aimed for a final headlong charge into the darkness. More and more worlds abandoned their ancestors' science and turned to superstition and subsistence farming as the great powers continued to fight over the long-dead Cameron throne. A detached observer might consider the world of the early thirty-first century the final act in human history as the nobility destroyed themselves in order to win the most Pyrrhic of Pyrrhic victories, becoming kings of nothing but ashes. 

Or so it seemed, because as the armies of the Successor Lords slowly ground to an exhausted halt a singular event occurred in the middle Periphery. Nobody knows why it happened, and the mechanisms of how it happened are equally mysterious, but out of the darkness of the Gernsback Expanse arose a single flickering flame. In the years before the Last War this flame would spread, and it would set fire to the hearts and minds of trillions…"

~***~ 

_Excerpt from "_ _The Tough Guide to the Sea of Time_ " _by Anonymous (Internet distribution, 3030):_

"God bless mad science, because without it I couldn't tell you exactly when everything went all topsy-turvy on us. On the old calendar (that's the one that old bastards like your Uncle Anon still use out of habit, because the whole idea of being transported lock, stock and barrel to another universe still hasn't quite penetrated our little monkey brains) it happened on the eighth of November in the year of our lord 2014. Not an interesting day by anybody's standards; most people got up and did what they normally did that day, go to work or school, go on dates, you know. There was no announcement, no shifting of the heavens or pronouncements from On High that the world as we knew it had changed forever and ever, amen. Maybe somebody realized something had changed, some subtle shift in the air or water let them know before the rest of us, but if they did they kept it to themselves. Or they forgot about it, damned if I know.

The Fen, bless their nerdy little hearts, were too busy building their distant utopia to pay much attention. Not that this hasn't stopped the rumors of course. There's the legend of the hotel mogul and the tourists from beyond time and space, and people like to build on that and say that said mogul had some inside information on the situation, as it were. But the ravings of paranoids are not what Uncle Anon is here for. If you really want that go step into a bar, or check out the net. This is about _truth_ : cold, hard _facts_. 

So, the facts: Nobody knew about the Event when it happened, because whatever it was the visible effect still moved at the speed of light and nobody was out that far when the balloon went off. Fen move fast when they feel like it, but a lot of the time they prefer to move slow. Like hobbits. Fenspace continued building up in the solar system and in some of the nearer stars, expanding their habitats and colonies as more people on Earth got comfortable with the idea of living in space and started moving upstairs. The most interesting news in the first half of 2024 was the discovery of alien ruins on the innermost planet of Epsilon Eridani, setting off a rush of souvenir hunters that made a lot of pointy-eared guys cranky. Beyond that 2024 was shaping up to be a nice quiet year in the continued glorious manifest destiny of Fenspace. 

Which is why everybody was shocked silly on October 10 2024, when a non-Fen starship showed up without any warning."

~***~

_Excerpt from "_ _Yar! The Big Book of Famous Pirates_ " _(Treadstone Publishing, Irian, 3042):_

"Not all the famous pirates are successful ones. Take the 'dread' pirate lord Harcourt Mulciber, for example: Mulciber wasn't famous for his successful raids (they never were), his skills as a mechwarrior (nonexistent) nor his ferocity in battle (which ranged from 'bombastic' to 'trying too hard'), but rather for his ability to slip custody, his willingness to come back again for another go and the astonishing fact that he died peacefully in his sleep of advanced old age.

Likewise, the pirates of the Drakon Company were never particularly successful as pirates. Originally setting out as a mercenary company in the early 3000's, Drakon Company had a jumpship on long-term lease from the warlords of Antallos, one dropship, a mixed lance of battlemechs, not quite a full platoon of infantry and not much else. Burgess Hale, the company's commander for most of its existence, was a moderately distinguished Davion mechwarrior who left the AFFS under a cloud of scandal. Hale did his level best to maintain a level of respectability for his people but this often fell apart, usually when his pirates started acting like pirates at the worst possible moment. 

Drakon Company operated for the most part out of the wild space between the Draconis Combine, the Federated Suns and the Outworlds Alliance, poking at the dragon's tail for tech and hard currency while clawing at the Outworlder's meaty underbelly for raw materials. In 3019 Drakon Company was en-route to an established hideout in the Outworlds Waste when the jumpship _Rogue Elephant_ skirted the edge of an uninhabited section of space and detected faint radio signals coming from a place where the stars looked wrong. 

Hale never explained his decision, to his crew, to investigators or anyone else, but instead of heading on into the Wastes he ordered the _Rogue Elephant_ into the strange patch of space, perhaps in hope of finding a lostech cache. 

What he found would catapult his pirates into the history books."


	3. And the World Turned Upside-Down

### Fenspace, 10 October – 31 October 3019

> “ _The Gernsback Expanse is a stellar desert with very little to offer the League in terms of future colonization. Even with advanced terraforming there’s no strategic or other value to the general area…”_ ~ Star League Defence Force Exploration Division,  Report on Trans-Antallos Space (2690)

 

> “ _To think all of this was sitting on our doorstep for so long and us unaware!”_ ~ Takashi Kurita (3023)

_Excerpt from “_ _Zoalaster’s Annotated Guide to the Gernsback Expanse (3077 Edition)_ ” _(Starfleet BuNav, Alpheratz, 3077):_

“Before the Event, the Gernsback Expanse was one of many areas of space on the Periphery that were known but not particularly well-known. Consisting of several thousand low-mass red dwarf stars punctuated by a few brighter yellow dwarfs, the Expanse was surveyed for navigational purposes over the years. Beyond that, there was little interest in Gernsback as a colonization target. While several of the yellow dwarfs had livable – if not exactly palatable – planets orbiting them, none had a resource base any Inner Sphere or Periphery nation considered valuable enough to set up a colony for. Several trade routes skirted the edges of the Expanse, using the M-type dwarfs as a way to recharge in relative obscurity, if not quickly. The Gernsback Expanse was under consideration as an expansion of the Outworlds Alliance in the 28th century, but the collapse of the Star League and the general anarchy prevented this from occurring…

(…) The Event is still shrouded in mystery. How it happened, and why it happened, are not known, may never be fully understood and are outside the purview of this document. What is known is that via unknown means a sphere with a rough radius of 50 light-years centered on Tellus was transported from its original universe and overlaid on a point inside the Gernsback Expanse. The stars within that radius were replaced by Sol and the stars around it, which were largely identical to the stars around Terra but with a few surprising differences…”

~***~

_**JS Rogue Elephant,** _ **Unknown System**  
 **10 October 3019**

“Okay, so this is what we have so far,” the navigator looked at the holotank containing telescopic images of the system _Rogue Elephant_ had just jumped into. “Eight planets, four or five minor worlds the scopes can pick out and a fairly substantial asteroid belt. The third planet looks habitable from here, the sensors are picking up oxygen in the atmosphere at least.”

Burgess Hale, mechwarrior, company commander and occasional pirate, scratched his beard thoughtfully. “So what about the signal we picked up?” he asked. “Coming from the third planet?”

“Signal _s_ , Major,” the navigator corrected. “There’s a shit-ton of radio traffic in this system, as much as I’d expect from, oh, a regional capital. We’ve got traffic coming from the second, third and fourth planets, plus some stuff that might be signals coming from the moons of the fifth and sixth but the radiation belts are strong enough that we can’t be sure. Point is, there’s a lot of stuff out there and it’s all active.”

“Okay, mystery solved,” Captain Matthew Benson said from his spot on the bridge. “Let’s get the drive recharged and out of here before they notice us.”

“Oh come on, Benson,” Hale said, “where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Right where I left it,” Benson replied frostily, “right next to my sense of profit. We’re not getting paid for this little jaunt, and your lance isn’t enough to take on a regional capital. Well, not and live through the process,” he concluded with a faint sneer. Hale bristled, then relaxed.

“A hidden world out in the wilds could be profitable, Benson,” Hale said.

“Oh? How?”

“Not sure yet,” Hale admitted. “But it’s a possibility. If anything it looks more hospitable than Port Krin. We need to get closer... how long before the drive’s ready for a quick-jump?”

Benson blinked hard. His nominal employer had already done something crazy in following these mysterious radio signals to their source, and now he wanted to risk the ship jumping into a populated system? Madness. “We can be ready in six hours, Major,” he said slowly. “Eight would be better, or even better yet let the drive charge properly but–”

“Six hours, then,” Hale said. “Let’s get to it.”

~***~

_Rogue Elephant_ ’s arrival didn’t go unnoticed. An orbiting radio telescope picked up the flash of radiation and dutifully sent the data along to its controller on the asteroid 2700 Baikonur. The hive of artificial intelligence carefully scrutinized the data, said “huh” and shipped the information off to the Weird Events desk on Luna, where the more fleshy creatures could take a better look at it.

Five hours after the jumpship’s arrival, optical scopes and other instruments focused on the space ten AU from the sun’s south pole. They found the spacecraft easily enough and immediately jumped to the right wrong conclusion: obviously somebody was playing around with mad science and something, as it inevitably did, went wrong. A squadron of rescue and police craft were dispatched to the site.

At hour six, the situation changed.

~***~

The unpleasant sensations of jump travel faded away, and Burgess Hale ran a hand over his face. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Benson barking orders, making sure that the jumpship had survived the transition. “We make it?” he asked. Benson snorted.

“We’re still alive, if that’s what you mean, Major,” he said archly. “The ship’s doing fine – a little overheated but nothing the radiators can’t handle. Deploying the sail now.”

“Have we got eyes on target?”

“Cameras should be up... right about now.” The holotank flickered to life and in the middle hung a very pretty blue planet. Hale gave it a considering look.

“Not bad,” he said. “Very Terra-like. We ought to be able to find something worth-” Whatever Hale was planning to say next was lost to history when Jane Dietrich, the _Drakon_ ’s sensors and electronic warfare officer, popped into the holotank’s view.

“Major!” she said, eye wide with shock. “We’re being pinged!”

“What direction?” Hale snapped.

“They’re all over the place!” Dietrich said. “Twenty, no thirty different sources, varying strengths but they’re surrounding us. Hang on – one big signal just started vectoring directly for us, velocity... wait no,” she mumbled, ducking slightly out of the camera while she worked on her console. “That can’t possibly be right.”

“Dietrich, report,” Hale said impatiently, “what can’t be right?”

“Major,” Dietrich replied nervously, “we have a target with an _Overlord_ -sized radar return approaching us at six thousand kilometers _per second_.”

The mood on the _Elephant_ ’s bridge suddenly got very tense.

~***~

_**USS Stingray** _ **, approaching Sol-Tellus L1**  
 **10 October 3019**

It had all started out so small, that was the thing Rear Admiral Emily Lake, USN couldn’t help but think for a long time after... It had happened. She wasn’t even supposed to be _on_ the _Stingray_ , it hadn’t been her regular duty station for years, but the combination of being in the right place at the right time meant she was conducting an ‘inspection tour’ of the new fish when some joker set off a huge electromagnetic pulse right at the Earth-Sol L1 point.

Fearing a nuclear explosion, Emily quickly took command and ordered _Stingray_ – still the biggest and baddest combat vessel in cislunar space – to the L1 point at flank speed. The Stingray still flew as beautifully as she did back during her tenure as XO and CO, and she had to admit that it felt good to be back in the command seat instead of flying a desk.

A hectic few minutes later the flying submarine closed in on the object sitting at the center of the blast.

“Scopes, what do we have?” Lake asked, abandoning the conn to peer over the sensor officer’s shoulder.

“Got it now, Admiral,” Petty Officer Wood said. “It’s not broadcasting IFF on any of the standard interwave or radio frequencies. Nothing in the warbook, but the silhouette looks familiar... huh,” he trailed off for a second, deep in thought. “Admiral, I think that’s an _Invader_.”

“Invader?” Emily said, puzzled. Wood took the risk and gave a flag officer a pitying look.

“You never studied,” he said. Lake glared and Wood hastily amended. “It’s an _Invader_ jumpship from the _BattleTech_ games. Interstellar transport, the big round thing on the silhouette’s probably a dropship of some kind.”

“Interesting,” the admiral said thoughtfully. “That and no IFF, are they a hermit faction maybe?”

“Could be, ma’am. If they’ve been hiding out, they put their time to good use.”

Lake nodded. “Right, no sense in just wondering, let’s ask them. Communications,” she turned to the radio officer’s console. “Hail that ship, let’s see who we’re dealing with.”

“Yes’m,” replied the radioman, switching on the wideband transmitter. “This is the _USS Stingray_ to unidentified spacecraft, you are in a high-traffic zone, please ID and state your business.”

~***~

_Transmission log,_ USS Stingray _, dated 30191014 0612Z_

 **Stingray** – Communications officer PO T. Vasquez , USN  
 **Unknown** – Unknown, designate “Jumpship _Rogue Elephant_ ”

 **Stingray:** This is the _USS Stingray_ to unidentified spacecraft, you are in a high-traffic zone, please ID and state your business.

 **Unknown:** (no reply)

 **Stingray:** This is _USS Stingray_ to unknown spacecraft, please ID and state business.

 **Unknown:** Um, hello? This is the jumpship _Rogue Elephant_. We’re, ah, we’re just taking a look around.

 **Stingray:** (pause) Understood, _Rogue Elephant_. What’s your IFF? What flag are you flying?

 **Unknown:** (pause) Um, we’re independent contractors out of Port Krin, Antallos.

 **Stingray:** (pause) We have no record of a habitat named Antallos, _Elephant_. Can you give us the orbital elements?

 **Unknown:** Orbital ele-? (pause) Uh, we don’t have those at hand, _Stingray_ , but it’s about seven jumps away. Call it two hundred light years as the crow flies.

 **Stingray:** (no reply)

 **Stingray:** Say again, _Elephant_. Two _hundred_ light years?

 **Unknown:** Uh, yeah. Give or take.

 **Stingray:** (no reply)

 **Stingray Actual:** _Rogue Elephant_ , this is Admiral Emily Lake, United States Navy. I’d like to speak to your commanding officer, please.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _The Sixth World_ ” _by Sun-Tzu Liao (Capellan Union University Press, Sian, 3085):_

“‘Lost worlds’ are a common occurrence in the Deep Periphery. Founded by accident or design, there are an unknown number of planets between the edges of the Inner Sphere and the boundaries of the spiral arm where humans have settled and then been forgotten by the galaxy at large. A world as populated and well-used as Tellus however were comparative rarities; in the late 3010s only major worlds deep in the Successor States had similar infrastructure.

The _Rogue Elephant_ ’s crew were surprised, then suspicious. The unusual area of space they’d jumped into combined with a large and heavily industrialized colony reeked of Successor State activity. Burgess Hale, the man in charge of Drakon Company, decided that not giving the mysterious colonists a reason to shoot was the wisest move. Playing up the impression of poor, waylaid travellers – which to be entirely fair to Major Hale and his crew wasn’t at all far off the mark – the sometimes-pirates did their best to look completely peaceable. This play wasn’t completely successful, as both the dropship and the crew showed plenty of signs that they were hardened combat veterans, but as Hale forbade his soldiers from making any hostile moves the Fen were willing to accept the polite lie and gave them general access to the entire solar system.

(…) The modern Tellus was still in its infancy at this point. What we call the Handwavium Age hadn’t quite yet been born, the technology still restricted or outright illegal in many parts of the world. The African, Indian and South American Renaissances were either in their early stages or not yet imagined as possible by the people responsible. The planet was still locked in a fight over economic and social inequality, and the issue of global climate change hung over everything Tellurian like the sword of Damocles. Away from the planet, the Fenspace Convention had just survived its initial lawless period and was slowly evolving into the meta-national organization that we recognize today. As the effects of handwavium penetrated deeper and deeper into the old order, both Tellus and Fenspace stood on the verge of revolutionary change.

This was the state of affairs when the _Rogue Elephant_ jumped from the nadir point to the Sol-Tellus L1 point on 10 October 3019. In the immediate aftermath of the jumpship’s encounter with the _USS Stingray_ , the ship was surrounded by a flotilla of spacecraft ranging from official envoys to security monitors to media camera platforms mingling with a great impossible swarming cloud of flying groundcars full of gawkers.

Drakon Company had become the flavor-of-the-month in a culture that reveled in celebrity. Once the official formalities had been disposed of, the crew dispersed to Tellus and Fenspace as tourists…”

~***~

_Excerpt from the diaries of Evard Christensen, engineer’s mate,_ DS Drakon _:_

October 15, 3019:

“It’s a city made of glass. A city made of _solid glass_. That floats. In the atmosphere of a planet whose surface could cook a battlemech. 

These people are out of their goddamned minds!

There’s something of a population imbalance in this town, lots more women than men, not that I’m complaining or anything. It’s funny, girls wearing belts for skirts keep giving me the eye when I walk past. I guess they’ve heard the news about the mysterious visitors. One girl caught my eye, lots of pink hair with legs that couldn’t have been real and a chest that definitely wasn’t. Made my introductions & find out that her equally-impressive companion is her wife & make me feel like a damn idiot for not spotting it sooner. Thankfully Pinky took pity & pointed me towards a bar called the Tipsy Senshi.

Don’t remember much of anything after that & didn’t wake up with any wounds, so a good night then so.

October 16, 3019:

Stopped over at a station called Stellvia, big ring thing like a stack of latkes. My connection to the planet Mars was a ship called the _Ciara_ , and it really was an actual, hand-to-Odin wet ocean ship that someone made fly. I’ve stopped questioning these things. Easier that way.

Spent the layover getting the third degree from this little purple-haired number in a red dress. Thought she might’ve been one of those ‘biomods’ I’ve heard about all over, but didn’t get the chance to ask. She tried to get me to talk about battlemechs and their weapons loadouts, which was okay but not something I know a lot about. She was a little disappointed but then the discussion got into fusion engines & we had a pretty fine time until boarding call.

Get on board the ship & finally find out what a biomod is. My steward – cruise director? – had gray fur and cat’s ears. Never seen anything like it & I hope never to again. What in God’s name have these people done to themselves? You hear rumors about mutated monsters lurking in the Periphery, all sorts of demented experiments the Camerons and Amarises were up to in their time. Never thought I’d actually see one up close and personal.

My hosts have reassured me that the procedure’s “very difficult to do accidentally.” I noticed they didn’t say impossible. Keeping my eyes peeled for accidents. Just in case.

October 17, 3019:

New Adelaide’s a nice little mining town, plenty of bars for the thirsty tourist and you can’t beat the view. The whole place sits on the edge of this gigantic canyon, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. The locals are a bit temperamental, though. Went into a bar with a nice view of the canyon’s edge & tried to chat up this tiny little local with tattoos on her face. Next thing I know I’m waking up in the town clinic feeling like a dropship landed on me.

Doc wants to know what I said to piss her off, but I can’t actually remember. Last thing I remember is her eyes looking right through me. I’ve seen that look before. That girl’s a stone killer. Cute though. Maybe if I can figure out what I did wrong I can try again.

 _(hastily scrawled in the corner)_ Note to self: Stay away from small women w/ black hair. More trouble than they’re worth.

October 19, 3019:

Shouldn’t have gone to Mars Vegas. Lost most of my money and spent the night stoned off my gourd on the local drugs. Never. Fucking. Again. 

Lost too much cash for the standard flight, ended up hitching on this big green thing that dropped into port this afternoon.

October 20, 3019:

I’m going to stop trying with the locals. The ship’s captain is spoken for, and she’s only a she when stressed. I’m going to hide in my cabin and wait until we get wherever the hell it is we’re going.

Paranoia is the worst part. Looking at every single meal and wondering if I take a bite, will I wake up different tomorrow. Looking at every single person and wondering if they’re different too. It’s driving me a little crazy. Starting to go grey, too. Hopefully things will settle down at our destination.

October 21, 3019:

Serenity Valley is warm, and so is the companionship.

October 22, 3019:

Found a really interesting book in the bazaar today, a novel called “ _The Complete Warrior Trilogy_ ” by a guy named Stackpole. Seems to be a political thriller or a romance novel on the Inner Sphere, which is odd. I didn’t think that these people had any contact with the Inner Sphere, but whatever. I can see where the girl on Stellvia got all her ideas about battlemechs from, though. Pretty inaccurate but entertaining stuff.

I think this one’s coming back with me. There’s a lack of good novels in Port Krin, and this funny Inner Sphere soap opera would be worth a lot of C-Bills back home…”

 _Edvard Christensen was engineer’s mate on the dropship_ Drakon _and later joined XCOM Corps of Engineers as part of the Project MARATHON test crew. His recollections from First Contact are reprinted with permission._

~***~

> “ _We’ll stop at nothing, you see. All the suffering and the death and the pain in your world is_ entertainment _for us.”_ ~ Grant Morrison, Animal Man #26  
> 

_Excerpt from “_ _The Tough Guide to the Sea of Time_ ” _by Anonymous (Internet distribution, 3041):_

“Now we’ve got to talk about the truth, and the truth hurts. I’d like to break it to you gently but there’s no good way to do that. So sit back and bite on that bullet while Uncle Anon rips that scab off and we deal with the consequences, okay?

Way back before the Event, those of us on Earth (Tellus, whatever) knew a lot about the Inner Sphere, battlemechs, the endless cycles of war and deprivation and all the rest of that horseshit. We had a big stack of books, along with video games and a TV series, that explained the whole mess in excruciating detail. This big wadge of media was part of a war game called – wait for it – _BattleTech_ , where the players gamed out scenarios where big stompy robots fought other big stompy robots for honor, glory, loot or just for the hell of it. The game’s rules were pretty simple so the writers added a ton of detail about the robots, some of the famous robot pilots and the world they lived in, a mess of semi-feudal space colonies called – _dramatic pause_ – the Inner Sphere.

That sudden sense of existential horror you’re feeling right now is perfectly natural. Let it wash over you, but don’t indulge for too long ‘cause that way lies madness. Take a minute to revel in the perversity of the universe and/or any deities that might be listening in. I’ll wait.

Ready to get back to it? Okay. Here we go.

Something important to remember here: The likelihood that _you_ are the product of some drunken asshole of a writer’s ravings is really, really remote. The vast majority of us aren’t important enough to get that eye-of-God focus; if all the world’s a stage, then most of us are props. But that’s a _good_ thing! Being unimportant means we’re free to live our lives without worrying if someone upstairs (or downstairs, or across the street and I think I’ve mangled the metaphor enough) has it in for us. It’s really very liberating.

Also, it’s important to remember that just because some asshole wrote _those_ books, it doesn’t mean that we have to follow _that_ script. The mad philosophers tell us that the Fen aren’t supposed to be here; we’ve jacked up the natural order of things just by existing in this universe. Everything from 3019 onward has been frantic ad-libbing. We’re agents of chaos, and in chaos there is opportunity.

(Before we move on I should note that this sword cuts both ways. Remember that whole deal with the interdimensional visitors and the hotel magnate? Well, according to idle gossip one of said visitors brought along a book about the adventures of more than a few of Fenspace’s leading lights. She apparently left with the book autographed. And so it goes.)

When the _Elephant_ and her crew were in town, the general consensus was to keep the whole _BattleTech_ thing nicely out of sight. Nobody had any illusions that this was a good plan, or even a feasible one in the short term. Eventually the secret would’ve gotten out, because these things always do. Hell, something like half the population of Marsbase Sara had to be taped to the walls under ‘quarantine’ while _Elephant_ was in-system. 

The main reason the Secret Masters went to the trouble of taping a bunch of grognards to the Marsbase walls was, in a weird way, an attempt at keeping a sort of multidimensional Prime Directive. Remember, at this point the _Elephant_ worried that they’d misjumped, and the Fen intelligentsia figured that they actually _had_ misjumped from their universe into our universe. On the assumption that one of the bushels of mad scientists would eventually figure out how to send them back, the SMOFs didn’t want to burden these ‘poor, innocent mechwarriors’ (a polite lie, but whatever) with spoilers about how it all turned out. They meant well, or at least they meant something, but it all turned out pointless in the end.

Remember when I talked about how nobody noticed when the Event happened, because it was too far away and all of that stuff moved at the speed of light? Well, the day after _Rogue Elephant_ arrived in the Sol system, the light from the Event – a quick burst of blue as the interuniversal bubble popped and then all the light from the surrounding stars – finally reached a place with eyes on it. A robot telescope in orbit around the planet Arda got to see – and take some really nice pictures of – the background of stars changing. Now this thing wasn’t run by an AI, it was about as dumb as most Republicans, so it did what it was programmed to do: it took pictures and transmitted them back so the science guys could look at them.

Thirty-four hours later the pictures arrived at Korolevgrad. The Reds being what they were, the pictures were on public display a couple hours after that and the _entire goddamn system_ went nuts. It turned out that the intelligentsia was wrong about everything. The _Elephant_ wasn’t locked in with the Fen, the Fen were locked in the _Elephant_ ’s universe.

I like to think we took it pretty well. Once the initial ‘HOLY SHIT’ factor was covered, there wasn’t much in the way of panic. There were a few fistfights over the last can of beans at the Piggly-Wiggly, and a lot of very confused pronouncements by theologians and philosophers over the next couple of days sure, but the banks didn’t even close. The situation was actually a little _too big_ for a mass panic or any other big reaction. To be dumped into a totally different universe without warning is one thing if it’s just you, but the whole world? And to be fair, right up until the _Elephant_ arrived our position in the Inner Sphere had no effect of life in Fenspace or Earth. We hadn’t been dropped right into the middle of the Sphere, or right in the way of an alien invasion or anything.

Once the initial shock wore off the complete lack of other shoes dropping led most of us to employ our magnificent Tellurian _sangfroid_ and stop worrying about it. If and when something happened then we’d take care of it, for now let’s get back to living our lives and let the big brains worry about the ramifications…”

~***~

_Transcript of SMOFcon executive session, 24 October 3019:_

_(In attendance: SMOF-01 – SMOF-25 plus Philip Danchekker, UNOOSA)_

**Danchekker:** …and in conclusion, it is the opinion of the Security Council that the spacecraft _Rogue Elephant_ and _Drakon_ should be impounded immediately in the name of planetary security.

 **SMOF-04:** Any particular reason why we should seize these ships, Mr. Danchekker?

 **Danchekker:** The Council believes that if, no, when these people leave they will tell others about what they found and more importantly, where we are. Earth can’t expect to stand up to an invasion by… giant robots from the future. We’re vulnerable, and until we can make ourselves less vulnerable the Council wishes to engage in security through obscurity.

 **SMOF-07:** And when the next person blunders into our zone of control, what then? Do we ‘detain’ them as well?

 **Danchekker:** More than likely, yes. Please note Ambassador Fnord that I’m only the messenger here, I have no special insight into the Security Council.

 **SMOF-04:** Philip, please. We can’t simply pretend to be a hole in space.

 **Danchekker:** I don’t think that the Council is expecting this to be a permanent measure Madam Chancellor, only for a short period, say fifteen to twenty years.

 **SMOF-07:** There’s no way we can hold that. I give us two years, max before word gets out even if we detain the jumpship.

 **Danchekker:** I beg your pardon?

 **SMOF-01:** The Ambassador raises a point. Contact between us and the Inner Sphere is a two-way street, Mr. Danchekker. Even if we entrap all ships entering our space there is no way to completely bar _our_ ships from travelling to the Inner Sphere. The nearest ports are no more than six months away, easily doable by unmanned drones and large manned craft. Sooner or later, our secret will slip.

 **Danchekker:** That’s a very good point Minister Lovegood, and I’m sure the Council has taken it into consideration.

 **SMOF-10:** And then disregarded it.

 **SMOF-01:** Steady on, Noah.

 **SMOF-17:** What if we use them?

 **Danchekker:** I’m… not sure I follow your meaning, Mr. O’Neill.

 **SMOF-17:** These people are mercenaries, right? Or at least that’s what they’re claiming to be. Why don’t we take them up on the offer? We pay them, trade goods, precious metals, lord knows we’ve got plenty of crap just lying around taking up space, and in exchange they act as our factors in the Inner Sphere.

 **SMOF-08:** That’s, huh, that’s actually not that bad of an idea.

 **Danchekker:** Right up to the point where they double-cross us. We – or excuse me, I should say _you_ – don’t have any interstellar ships capable of catching up to a jumpship. All they need do is jump further than ten light years and we’d be unable to catch them.

 **SMOF-08:** Which is why the charm offensive is so important, Herr Danchekker. If we can convince them that being friendly is the better option… 

**Danchekker:** And what if they’re lying? They’re _pirates_ , for God’s sake! We can’t trust word one out of their mouths.

 **SMOF-17:** Yes yes, there are risks involved but those are risks inherent in any negotiation. Think of the reward, though. The Inner Sphere is a huge market of untapped potential-

 **Danchekker:** And I’m sure risking the safety of the planet to further your bank balance is entirely logical.

 **SMOF-17:** I resent the implication that-

 **SMOF-01:** Gentlemen, please! No fighting in the war room! Now. Padraig, as of right now we are not going to hire the _Rogue Elephant_ nor the _Drakon_ for any work in the Inner Sphere.

 **SMOF-17:** But-

 **SMOF-01:** Philip is entirely right that these people are likely pirates. We cannot trust them fully – not yet. We need to acclimatize them a little more before we start discussing things like trading.

 **Danchekker:** Nice to see somebody thinking strategically among the SMOFs.

 **SMOF-01:** _However_ , Philip, no matter what our final stratagems the Convention will not sign off on impounding the Spheroid vehicles, certainly not without better justification. Security by obscurity is no security at all, and making friends with wayward travellers has a better chance of paying off in the long term.

 **Danchekker:** So we’re to put planetary security in the hands of the magic of friendship? Forgive me, Minister, but that sounds hopelessly naive. 

**SMOF-01:** I understand your concerns, Philip, but it beats holing up and hoping against hope that the next visitors aren’t a worse gang of pirates, or the Kuritas or Davions or any of the _other_ gangs of violent idiots running about the Inner Sphere.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Fleetzrow’s Guide to the Robber Barons_ ” _(Wildrose Books, Atreus, 3044):_

“The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantile group (CHOAM) was the first Fen corporation to see the potential for major profit in trade outside the Gernsback Expanse. Tellus and Fenspace both produced goods that could be considered lostech in the Sphere of 3019, to say nothing of the near-magical effects of handwavium on just about everything. CHOAM’s chief operating officer Padraig O'Neill figured that one or two freighters of simple consumer electronics could be worth billions in trade, either directly or through importing Inner Sphere-grade products like fusion engines, neural-net computers and myomer, all of which were likely to be in high demand as Tellus adjusted to the post-Event situation.

In truth, this was a desperation move on O'Neill's part. CHOAM internal records from the time show that the company was consistently outperformed by its arch-rival Stellvia Trading, and had difficulty breaking into the lucrative Jovian and exosolar markets. For O'Neill, a passionate man who desired to be recognized as the wealthiest man in Fenspace, this failure to reach the top was a personal affront and he intended to see his company rise to be the premiere corporation in Fenspace, by hook or by crook…”

~***~

**O’Neill Station, Sol-Tellus L5**  
 **25 October 3019**

It took a moment for the idea to sink into Lucius Minamoto’s head: an entire space station reserved for the use of one man. The idea was almost obscene in its decadence. Even at the height of the Star League space infrastructure had been expensive to build and maintain, and to build something like that felt like an extravagant waste. Then again, Lucius reflected as the shuttle maneuvered towards O’Neill Station’s docking bay, the way the Fenspacers seemed to effortlessly do things in space allowed them to get away with it.

The shuttle landed on the bay with a thump. Minamoto exited and reveled for the hundredth time at the sensation of gravity without the tiny centripetal annoyances found in a spinning grav deck. “Captain?” A pretty young woman in a flattering business suit caught the captain’s eye. He nodded. “I’m Ms. Wilson, Mr. O’Neill’s executive assistant. If you’ll follow me?”

She led the captain and his guard down into the station, through corridors lined with extravagant wood panels and decorated with abstract oil paintings. Minamoto assumed that this was all supposed to impress O’Neill’s personal wealth and taste and he admitted that all this wood in space did speak of great wealth.

They entered a spacious room with more wood paneling – more extravagance! – with comfortable seats and a well-stocked bar. Padraig O’Neill was standing at the bar fixing a drink, looking poised and confident with his slicked hair and power suit. Minamoto understood his counterpart instinctively: a classic example of the species _neobarbarius commercus locus_ looking to make it big in the interstellar market.

Which was exactly what Lucius was looking for. He’d skinned neobarbs before, and this one looked like he had plenty of skin to go around.

“Captain Minamoto,” O’Neill said with a broad and not entirely fake smile. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“And you,” Minamoto replied, shaking the man’s hand. “I understand you’re interested in shipping a few things with us.”

“Well,” O’Neill drawled, “I’m interested in seeing if there’s something I have that might be marketable. Would you care for a drink, sir?” He gestured to the bar, and Minamoto nodded. O’Neill quickly poured something amber into a glass and handed it off to the captain.

Minamoto took a taste. The liquor was strong and smooth, wholly unlike the rotgut popular in Port Krin. “Well,” he said after another sip, “this ‘handwavium’ material your people use would be... a pretty big seller. Though I suppose samples might be hard to come by.”

“Not as hard as you might think,” O’Neill mused. “The raw material might be a bit difficult to transport, but there’s small amounts of wave in all sorts of products. Aside from raw handwavium, what do we have that you could sell?”

“Computers and related electronics,” Minamoto said without hesitation. “These tablet machines, for example. A good computer is worth it’s weight in gold or platinum in the Periphery, and a small mainframe crammed into a handheld would be worth it for the novelty value alone.”

“Hm,” O’Neill hummed, leaning back and looking thoughtful. “We could get plenty of tablets and other machines... laptops, perhaps desktop workstations. How about media? Movies, books, things like that?”

“Perhaps,” Minamoto allowed. “Most worlds create their own of course, or use historical archives from Terra. It might be worth a little to the right market.”

“Well, then we’ll throw a few entertainment systems into the mix. Might as well see if there’s market enough.”

“Very well,” Minamoto took another sip. “Now, obviously currency exchange is a non-starter at the moment, so what would you like me to bring back in trade?”

“We may have magic,” O’Neill said, “but your people have technology we don’t yet. Fusion engines and myomer would be the place to start. Computers too, if you’ve got them to spare – I know they look laughably primitive compared to ours but trust me, there’s some serious potential there. I’d like to ask for a full jumpdrive, but I don’t think we know each other well enough for that yet,” O’Neill finished with a knowing grin.

Minamoto smiled, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Indeed,” he said. “Getting a jumpdrive would be a bit beyond my skills as a salesman.” O’Neill laughed.

“Ah well, it’s not like we’d steal it from you like that little arse from the UN wants to,” he said. “Bloody arrogant cunts, give an inch and they take twenty miles if you don’t mind me saying.” Minamoto nodded politely as his host continued to ramble on about the evils of his local – or maybe it was his former – government and how they kept good entrepreneurs like himself from succeeding in the free market. It was a speech that Lucius had heard many times before from the civilized and the barbarian alike, so he just kept smiling and nodding and thought about how many C-Bills one container of Fenspacer electronics might be worth and how hopefully nobody would try to seize the _Drakon_ between now and then–

Lucius blinked, rolling his mental tape back a minute. “I’m sorry,” he said politely, “but could you repeat that? Did you say something about the government stealing a jumpdrive from us?”

O’Neill shrugged. “Just some grumbling from the government sector is all, Captain,” he reassured Lucius. “There’s always a few who’re afraid of the future and the opportunity it represents, you know. Anyway it was voted down, so it’s nothing us men of business need worry about.”

“Of course,” Minamoto said pleasantly. Inside he was seething. Of course it had been going too easily! Wasn’t that just the way he’d seen other pirates operate, lure in the mark with soft words and then strike when their guard was down? This smug, slicked-down weasel thought he could hold him and the _Drakon_ , did he? Well, Lucius Minamoto would show them the error of his ways.

“Excellent,” O’Neill prattled on, “so let’s discuss cargo shipments and when we need to have them...”

~***~

_**JS Rogue Elephant** _  
**25 October 3019**

Matthew Benson’s face was a mask of utter disbelief. “They want to _what?_ ” he exclaimed after Minamoto had gotten the chance to brief him properly.

“Impound the ships and detain us,” Minamoto said tensely. “They think we’re a security risk. Hell, they’re probably right; how long has this place been here, anyway?”

“God damn it. God _damn_ it! I knew jumping in for a closer look was a mistake, I should’ve _shot_ that fucking bastard moron of a mechwarrior when he gave the order!” Benson snarled. “So now what?”

“Now we figure out how to get out of here. Half the damn company’s scattered all over the system, there’s no way to get them back quickly-”

“About that. Why should we even bother?”

Minamoto blinked. “We work for Hale.”

“ _You_ work for Hale,” Benson corrected his fellow captain. “ _I_ freelance. Besides, getting us strung up in a trap is sufficient cause for breach of contract, right? So fuck Hale, he thought this place was so shiny, he can stay here. We can make up a good story when we reach civilization.” He paused. “Come to think of it,” he said, “what about expenses?”

Minamoto smirked. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve got it covered. And now that I think about it, the fewer mechwarriors we have on the ship, the more room there is for cargo...”

~***~

**Hotel Grissom, Port Luna**  
 **31 October 3019**

Uncanny.

That was the word Burgess Hale kept coming back to as he wandered around the Hotel Grissom's roof observation deck. The entire system was _uncanny._ Ships that moved without fusion engines, ships that just plain shouldn't be ships in the first place, and the people...

“Excuse me,” a voice said behind him, accompanied by a gentle nudge. Hale turned and saw a pretty young woman, perfectly normal except for the twitching cat's ears sticking out of her head. He blanched a little – only a little; despite the oddity of the situation Hale was still a mechwarrior dammit, and he wouldn't get spooked by every little thing like certain jumpship captains that remained nameless – and shifted out of the girl's path.

Looking up he could see, just barely, the small dot of light marking the _Elephant_ 's position at the pirate point. Right about now, Hale reasoned, the _Drakon_ would undock for the return trip to the spaceport.

The tiny light flared, much brighter and larger than it should have, then winked out. Hale blinked. What had just happened? Around him he could hear others murmuring, wondering what the sudden flare was. _Some sort of engine accident maybe?_ Hale thought. _No, Minamoto's too fussy about his ship for a drive explosion, and it lasted too long anyway._ The duration of the light tickled the back of his memory, as if he'd seen it before. He'd been six years old, watching through a telescope as a trading ship from New Damascus jumped out–

 _Son of a bitch._ A cold lance ran straight up from Hale's stomach and wrapped itself right around his hindbrain. “Those fuckers,” he said softly, horror-struck at the realization. “You _fuckers_ ,” he repeated, his voice rising to a shout. “FUCKERS! FUCKERS! FUCKERS!” Benson and Minamoto had _planned_ their escape, and they'd abandoned him and the entire lance. The bastards had left them to rot in this _insane asylum_ of a system.

Hale continued to rave at an uncaring sky until a grim looking man in a suit grabbed his shoulder and told him his presence was sorely needed elsewhere, also that he was terrifying the other paying guests.

~***~

The _Rogue Elephant_ ’s unexpected departure threw Fenspace into a tizzy. The electromagnetic burst disrupted lunar communications right in the middle of midday traffic.

Space traffic controllers at New Yavin Station in the L5 point recorded the jumpship leaving and immediately threw themselves into figuring out what happened. In the STC center controllers went to their screens and pored over vast columns of sensor data. “Astrometrics, report!” the duty officer barked into the command pit.

“EM sensors not reporting anything, sir,” the lead traffic officer replied. “Subspace sensors are clear except for some kittens.”

“Kittens,” the duty officer blinked. “I thought we fixed that.”

“Yes sir, no sir, Corps of Engineers is looking into it sir.”

The duty officer dropped back into his chair with a titanic sigh. “Very well, continue the search,” he said. “Contact Coruscant Fleet Base and have them scramble all available FTL assets. Get in touch with Starfleet and get them looking as well. _Find that ship._ ” He picked up the red phone every military officer dreads having to use. “I’ll inform the Senate of the situation.”

~***~

High above Procyon’s north pole space twisted around itself and snapped with a flare of energy. In free space for the first time in weeks, Matthew Benson and Lucius Minamoto breathed a sigh of relief as the _Rogue Elephant_ deployed sails and greenhouses for the recharge. The ship’s crew bustled more than usual – their departure from Fenspace left more than a few crew members behind. Mostly the combat personnel, but also a few people that neither captain felt fit in with their usual operating procedures. While the lack of high-handed mechwarriors and perpetually sour infantrymen was a great relief to the normal crew, the lack of spare hands meant there was more work per person, and they grumbled a bit.

An hour after arrival, the jumpship’s emergence signature intersected a blocky gray object not much larger than a car. The NOMAD probe was the heir to a tradition of unmanned space exploration stretching back the very beginnings of the Space Age, a deep-space probe designed to do long-term surveys of exosolar systems loaded down with the most durable power systems, communications and sensor arrays the United Federation of Planets could cram into a reasonably small frame. The NOMAD’s rudimentary expert system registered the sudden increase in radiation, checked it against what it knew was normal solar weather for the Procyon system and, determining it to be of non-natural nature, dutifully relayed the data back home.

Ten hours later, an alert came up on the big board at the Starfleet astrometrics lab in Utopia Planitia. The astrometrics crew were already deep in the hunt for the _Rogue Elephant_ , and the soft chime of an ‘incoming data’ alert brought the entire room to a halt.

The board operator, a third-year cadet who’d been doing workstudy when all hell broke loose, called up the alert and looked at the results. “Well son of a bitch,” he said softly, then waved down the duty officer. “Lieutenant Sovak,” he called, “I think we’ve got it.”

Sovak’s ears twitched as she hurried over to the console. “What have you got, Cadet?” she asked.

“Ma’am, NOMAD-15 picked up a big EM pulse near Procyon, way off the local ecliptic for it or Junior.” Sovak took a look at NOMAD-15’s readings, then glanced at the readings on her tablet.

“Hm, good work, Cadet,” she said. “That is almost certainly our missing jumpship.” She tapped the intercom function. “Astrometrics to Operations, NOMAD sensors have detected EM pulse in the Procyon system, signature matches the jumpship’s emergence pulse.”

“Understood, Astrometrics, good tracking. We’re redeploying forces towards Procyon. Operations out.”

“They won’t make it,” the cadet mumbled. Sovak gave him an odd look.

“Something on your mind, Cadet?” she said. The cadet flushed guiltily, then nodded.

“Ma’am,” he said, stopped, then began again. “Based on what we know about the jumpship’s capabilities, it will recharge and be ready to jump again in one hundred seventy-six hours. Procyon’s a dead system so there’s no reason for them to stick around so we have to assume that they won’t stay any longer than it takes to recharge, right?” Sovak nodded. “Well, NOMAD picked up the emergence signature ten hours ago, so we’re down to a hundred sixty-six hours. From here to Procyon at top speed is just under _two hundred_ hours. They won’t make it.”

Sovak raised a very Spockian eyebrow. “Do we have anything in position to intercept?”

“No, ma’am. If we had someone on station at Sirius or Luyten’s Star, but...”

“I know, Cadet. _Dammit!_ ” Sovak growled, punching the nearest bit of unoccupied wall. “Very well Cadet, package your data for briefing, I’ll let Operations know the bad news.”


	4. Interlude for Spheroid and Fen in C Sharp Minor

### Fenspace – Inner Sphere, 3019 – 3020

**Newton L. Gingrich Government Center, Port Luna  
 **1 November 3019****

When you’re a mechwarrior, you have to accept that sometimes things are just not going to go your way. For example, say you jump into an unknown system expecting to find a planet of halfway-civilized neobarbarians who’d provide a decent spot for R&R and maybe some loot laundering. Instead you end up in a heavily-industrialized system full of well meaning but completely _bugfuck insane_ people who casually violated the laws of physics and common sense. 

Then your cowardly weasel of a dropship captain and the backstabbing son of a bitch you called a jumpship skipper bug out, leaving you, your fellow mech jockeys and half the damn company stranded. Then, just put the top on the shit sundae, the local government is very unamused about said weasel and backstabber leaving and they’re taking it out on you.

This was not the best day Burgess Hale had ever had.

“I’m telling you,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, “I didn’t know they were going to take off like that. If I had, do you think I’d still have been at the fucking hotel when they left?” The man in front of him, a middle-aged specimen of government functionary Burgess had seen dozens of times on dozens of worlds, nodded absently.

“Nevertheless,” the man said, brushing imaginary lint off his immaculate black cuffs for what was the hundredth time in Burgess’s estimation. “The fact that they did leave suggests they had some reason to. What would you say that was?”

“I don’t know,” Burgess exclaimed. “I’m not a mind reader. Maybe they just got fed up with this place being _crazy?_ If you find them, maybe you can ask.”

“We intend to do just that, Major Hale,” the MIB said smoothly. “But for now it would be best if you cooperated with our invest – “

“Pardon me,” came a voice from behind Burgess. He half-turned to see a new man in the doorway. Unlike the black-suited government-agent types already in the room, this man was dressed in simple denim trousers and a shirt that was almost hallucinogenic in its garishness. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take the Major from you,” the man said cheerily.

“Ambassador Fnord,” the head MIB said tightly, “this is American territory, not only do you have no jurisdiction here you’re not allowed to _be_ here.”

Fnord smiled nastily. “Diplomatic immunity, Chauncey,” he replied, waving a thick packet of papers in the MIB’s face. “I’m on a mission from God.”

“Oh really? I’m sure your girlfriend will be upset you’ve become a priest.”

“Enh, you’d be surprised. She likes the collars.” Fnord shrugged. “ _Any_ way, Article 57, Subsection 2, Paragraph D of the Kandor Treaty says Fen have primary jurisdiction in runaway spacecraft cases and Major Hale here is a material witness. And you were going to what? Memory-hole him? Did you think no one was _watching?_ ” He slapped the packet down on the table and the MIB’s face went very red. “Wave bye-bye to the nice man and come along, Major.”

Burgess stood up and, when the MIB and his cronies made no move to stop him, moved to the door. “This isn’t over, Hale,” the MIB warned.

“You’re right,” Burgess shot back, “I’ll be back over our stolen property.”

“(Later man, later,)” Fnord murmured just loud enough for Burgess to hear. “(We’re on a deadline.)”

“What did you mean, a mission from God?” Burgess asked as the pair moved swiftly through the government building.

“Just that, m’man,” Fnord said breezily. “God sent me, and now Herself would like to meet you in person, as it were.” The two found themselves in the pressurized avenue in front of a long low black limousine. Fnord opened the door and Burgess obediently climbed in. The door slammed shut and he noticed his brightly-colored rescuer still out on the kerb. But he was not alone. In the rear-facing seat was a small Asian woman in a pressed blue business suit, shoulder-length brown hair pulled back and tied with a yellow ribbon. Her light brown eyes glittered dangerously in the streetlights.

“Major Burgess Hale, mechwarrior and commander of the Drakon Company,” pronounced Haruhi Suzumiya with an oddly gleeful note in her voice. “I’ve been wanting to meet you. Let’s talk about your traveling companions, hmmmm?”

~***~

_Transcript of SMOFcon emergency session, 2 November 3019_

_(In attendance: SMOF-01 – SMOF-25, plus Philip Danchekker, UNOOSA and Burgess Hale, unaffiliated.)_

**SMOF-01:** Alright ladies, gentlemen, others. We all know what’s happened, so let’s not waste any time. Major Hale, the one question I have for you right now is: what happens next?

**Hale:** Eh?

**SMOF-01:** You served with these men, I presume you know what they’ll do now that they’ve left the system. 

**Hale:** Well… right now they’re recharging the KF engine. They probably jumped out thinking nobody here could track them or chase them down. (pause) Er, nobody can do that, right?

**SMOF-04:** A scientific probe picked up their emergence signature, but our FTL methods… well, let’s just say that by the time any interceptors arrive they’ll be long gone.

**Hale:** Damn. That would’ve solved some problems.

**SMOF-01:** Please continue, Major. Once the drive is recharged I assume they’ll make a jump for the outer edge of the Event bubble, and then from there make their way back to the Inner Sphere?

**Hale:** More than likely, yeah. I can’t say for certain, but once they’re back in familiar stars they’ll probably make for Antallos. It’s the closest freeport, and Benson is a known quantity there. From there, well, I don’t know.

**Danchekker:** Major, what are the odds that the _Rogue Elephant_ and _Drakon_ crews will try and sell information about this system?

**Hale:** That’s, huh. I’m not sure. They’ll tell tales about this place – it’s too weird not to, and they’ll make for some great stories. Selling the location though… don’t know. Depends on how Benson and Minamoto try to spin it. They’ll have to explain why most of the combat company is missing, and without decent evidence everybody will assume they’re lying to cover up a mutiny.

**SMOF-18:** Ahem. That’s… that may be a problem.

**SMOF-01:** Something to add Mr. O’Neill?

**SMOF-18:** Yes, well. A few days before the Elephant departed I met with Captain Minamoto and contracted him to ship goods to the Inner Sphere on behalf of CHOAM. And we had several containers of cargo aboard _Drakon_ when it left. 

**SMOF-07:** Padraig you egotistical profit-obsessed little _fuckwit-—_

(general tumult)

**SMOF-01:** Settle down! Down all of you, Voldemort damn your eyes! Padraig, what _kind_ of cargo?

**SMOF-18:** Consumer electronics and media, mostly. Lightly used computer hardware, HD monitors, gaming platforms, a few laptops. A selection of movies, albums and games. Nothing cutting edge.

**SMOF-07:** Fuck me running. Major, how does this change things?

**Hale:** It’s evidence this place is real. Computers like yours are Star League grade in a lot of ways, really rare on the Periphery and valuable even down in the more civilized parts. Benson has the coordinates, either he’ll come back or he’ll sell them to somebody else. Either way somebody will be coming, and probably soon.

**SMOF-04:** How long?

**Hale:** It’s seven weeks to Antallos from here, give it maybe a month to sell off the cargo and find some willing mechwarriors, then another seven weeks back to here. So call it... four months minimum turnaround.

**SMOF-04:** Thank you, Major. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got four months before the sky falls. We’d best make good use of them, or we are going to have a very rough time of it.

**SMOF-07:** I’m assuming you didn’t take the floor just to hector and doomsay, Yu-jin. You’ve got a plan?

**SMOF-04:** Starting to have one, Malaclypse. We need to establish a control zone around Sol, at least to the one-jump line, preferably to the Event boundary. At the bare minimum we should be able to know when and where KF-capable ships arrive within striking distance. The Navy has a few proposals I’d like you to forward to Starfleet, Ambassador.

**SMOF-07:** I can do that. How about reaction forces?

**SMOF-04:** Centered on Sol, I think. This is the heart of our population and industry, we need to protect it to the utmost of our ability.

**SMOF-12:** What about the exosolar colonies?

**SMOF-07:** The exos don’t have the infrastructure to handle full-fledged defense platforms. We can put together early warning stations and then stage limited skirmish forces out of the colonies.

**SMOF-12:** I don’t know, that sounds like we’re sacrificing the colonies to invasion.

**Danchekker:** We may have to. Needs of the many as the Trekkies say.

**SMOF-04:** This brings me to my second point. We need to develop independent KF capability. Subspace drive is useful but it’s too slow to allow us to protect our colonies from Earth.

**SMOF-02:** How? It’s not like the _Elephant_ left a jump drive behind.

**SMOF-11:** We have scans of their jumpship, we have plenty of sparks and we have the Catalog. Between the three we ought to be able to build a prototype KF engine in a year or so. We might even be able to improve on the original design if we give them enough time.

**SMOF-01:** I agree, it’s worth investigating the possibility. KF capability changes us from client to player. 

**SMOF-07:** Though it doesn’t help us with the situation in four months. Right now let’s focus on securing what we can and then start poking through the toy chest.

**SMOF-04:** Agreed, protecting our people comes first.

**SMOF-01:** So noted. The emergency clause has been invoked and Convention is scheduled for November 8th. I trust everybody will be there.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Rough and Ready: A History of the Roughriders 3009 – 3050_ ” _by Mayonaka Rhodes (Gyldendal Books, New Bergen 3052):_

“If you’re not from Fenspace you have to understand that there’s two types of Conventions, the ordinary cons and the emergency ones. Ordinary cons are sort of a legislative session combined with a really big party. Once a year as many people as can will show up in a place to talk about politics, make speeches, sit on panels, dress up, get drunk and decide on the general course of Fenspace for the next year. They’re actually a lot of fun.

Emergency cons… well, they’re a different thing altogether. Sphere-Con was called under the emergency clause in the Articles, which has only been done a couple times ever, and this was the first one I ever attended. The mood was really tense that year; Dad said it reminded him a little of SOS-Con before the Boskone War but worse. I wasn’t there for SOS-Con but yeah, I can see what he was getting at, because it was a very strange scene. Everybody was worried, from the SMOFs to us regular people, and I’m not sure anybody had an idea on what to do next. Well, the SMOFs might’ve but they didn’t say anything right off the bat, which made us even more nervous…

(…) We got the debriefings from an old friend of ours who was highly-placed in the Venusian court. All the regular histories say Serenity II was the one who leaked, since she’d served as our local Senshi before she was tapped to replace Tanith when she abdicated, but that’s not true. ‘Nika watched out for us a little more than most, but never to the point where she’d leak classified documents. Neither Mom nor Dad ever told me who it was at court gave them the docs, but after looking into it I’ve decided it was probably a Lunar or Lagrange source.

Anyway, we got the debriefings and those were interesting, and Haruhi faxed us the preliminary analyses the brains at the White Tower had put together. Pretty much everything Hale said about his jumpship captain screamed caution. To the best of our knowledge, Matt Benson wasn’t a guy who’d put his ass on the line for anything short of Armageddon. There was no way this cautious captain would jump blind into an area of space he knew nothing about. He’d sit there, he’d take readings and only then would he act. So we had a cautious man flying in unexplored space, he’d obviously take the safest route – i.e. the route he knows the best – in and out of the unexplored area.

It was right about at this point in the analysis that Dad looks up from his tablet and looks at me and Mom and Jess and says ‘You know, I have an idea” with that funny little glint in his eye…

(…) The plan itself was pretty simple: Even taking into account theoretically underpowered weapons, us Fen had enough sheer weight of firepower available to us that working together we could stomp just about anything short of actual warships coming through a jump point. Now, we knew which direction the Rogue Elephant left from, and that Benson was a cautious man who’d backtrack as much as he could in unknown space. So if we put a garrison big enough to stomp, or even just intimidate return visitors, then we could contain any battle way the hell away from population centers and maybe stop an invasion before it began…

(…) Getting the plan through Sphere-Con was the easiest bit, really. Mom was our official representative that year and she always had a pretty good harangue. We had Haruhi on our side of course, and Seung Yu-jin seemed fairly positive about hitting hard and as far from Tellus as possible. A lot of the smaller factions and the grey-area types like the corporate interests didn’t really like the plan all that much. And yeah, as it turned out it was a big risk putting most of our eggs in one basket at Procyon. 

I was still pretty young at Sphere-Con, just a kid really, so I was mostly just there during all the big discussion panels and the like. And in the years since I’ve heard all the remarks about the Crazy Eddie Squadron, how it was all intended to increase their visibility within the Convention, to score new construction contracts or PEPPER exemptions or just for the personal glory of ‘Ben and Gina, Professional Heroes.’

None of that is true. My parents would never – _never did_ – put their ambitions ahead of the mission. Benjamin Rhodes and Regina Langley-Rhodes always try to do the right thing, even when it doesn’t work out. The Crazy Eddie Squadron wasn’t intended to make them look good, it was intended to hit the enemy hard, fast and as far away from people who shouldn’t be in the line of fire as possible. I can say with absolute certainty that what my parents came up with was the best plan for an affirmative defense we could come up with with the information we had. If they’d known differently then maybe we would’ve done something else and the world would be a different place. 

_Mayonaka Rhodes is the eldest child of Roughriders founders Benjamin and Regina Rhodes and served as a Rasalhaugian flight commander during the Last Succession War. This is her first book._

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **24 December 3019**

“So there we were, trapped!” Lucius Minamoto gestured dramatically to the assembled pirates, joygirls and drunkards of Port Krin’s most prestigious drinking establishment, the Leopard’s Spots. “The neobarbs had gotten between us and the dropship, us with our haul and the savages were out for blood! What’s worse they’d managed to turn on the old nuclear warhead the damn fools were worshipping as a god. We had twenty minutes tops to get out of there.”

Minamoto paused, closed his eyes and with an expertly-timed sniffle of regret continued. “Major Hale, oh, a brave man, he and his lance volunteered to stay behind and keep the neobarbs occupied while we got the loot stowed and ready for takeoff. ‘But Major,’ I said, ‘what happens if you don’t make it?’ He just grinned and said ‘Then have a drink for me when you get back to Port Krin.’ The entire lance stayed behind and fought the barbarians and their collection of old League hardware… such bravery! I waited as long as I could, but they never made it back to the _Drakon_. A few seconds after takeoff we saw the flash and the fireball, and I knew that those brilliant mechwarriors had paid the ultimate price.

“So a toast, comrades! To Major Hale and his men! _Salut!_ ” Minamoto raised his glass and downed the contents, and about half the audience did the same. Lucius scanned the room and saw faint disbelief on the faces of many, but nobody cared enough to say a word against him. True or not, it was a good story, and pirates always loved a good story.

~***~

Elsewhere in Port Krin, Matthew Benson was enjoying the entertainment at the governor’s palace; a comfortable chair, joygirls on each arm and a tall glass of authentic Terran single malt. At the table across from him the current ruler of Port Krin and therefore the most important man on Antallos examined the wealth of treasures Benson had brought with him. “These are fascinating trinkets,” Aidan Vorax said thoughtfully. “The gift is most appreciated.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Vorax,” Benson replied, happily sipping his whiskey.

“And they didn’t come from, oh what did Minamoto say, a planet where the natives worshipped the old factories as gods? And were blown up to boot?”

“No sir, Minamoto likes to spin stories for the punters. Keeps him happy with free booze and cheap girls, and it’s a good way of discouraging competition. The _real_ place has actual working factories, not some abandoned old relics.”

Vorax’s eyebrows rose. “Really,” he said. “That’s very interesting.”

“Yes sir,” Benson replied. “One nice big habitable planet, a couple dome colonies on the moons and the like and a bunch of space stations. And get this,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “it’s _completely undefended_. No mechs, no ASFs, no static defenses. And I just happen to be the only one who knows where it is.”

“Now that’s even more interesting,” Vorax smiled, a sharp expression on his lean face. “I foresee a great windfall coming your way, Captain.”

“I certainly thought so,” Benson nodded agreeably. “Selling the coordinates would make for a nice tidy profit.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” Vorax replied, his smile growing sharper and showing a little tooth. “But there’s an even better way to make a profit on this.”

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s something my grandmother once said, ‘never buy milk if you can get the cow for free.’”

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Popular Science Online_ ” _dated 30 December 3019:_

“…Facing continued incursions from the Inner Sphere in the post-Event world, the Galactic Republic Navy and the United Federation of Planets Starfleet have developed a clever early-warning system designed to allow Earth early warning should jumpships from our new neighbors show up in our local neighborhood. 

Called the GUARDIAN system, the network is based on the NOMAD probes used by Starfleet to do remote surveys of strange new worlds. Instead of planetary and stellar science however, GUARDIAN will be equipped with specialized sensor systems that will not only pick up hyperspace emergence events but also theoretically be able to determine what kind of ships are arriving, then transmit that data back to Earth via interwave.

The Republic Navy and Starfleet yards are hard at work building and testing the GUARDIAN prototypes, with the hopes of having the initial network online early next year. The end goal of GUARDIAN is to have all of the brightest stars within the Event boundaries covered by early-warning probes by the end of next year at the latest…”

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **7 January 3020**

Precentor Toshiro MacLeod examined the thin plastic case in front of him. “Interesting,” he said to his eager young subordinate. “It’s a mobile terminal, a bit primitive but cleverly designed. What’s so exciting about it?”

Demi-Precentor Alexi Watts took a deep breath and engaged lecture mode. “First of all, it’s not a terminal, or not just a terminal at any rate. We dissected one of the samples we bought off the pirates and it turns out that this ‘terminal’ contains roughly the same amount of processing power as one of our smaller mainframes.”

“Really now.” MacLeod’s bushy eyebrows went up. “You have my full attention, Demi-Precentor. Please continue.”

“What’s more,” Watts continued, “the hardware and software coding are almost alien in nature. There’s a few things that resemble common Inner Sphere computing – Adept Parker believes that the network transmission protocols share a common ancestor with ours – but the rest is completely different. Whatever this is, it isn’t lostech in the ordinary sense. Somebody out there has the means to build new computers completely unlike anything in the Inner Sphere _from scratch_.”

“Watts, my dear boy,” MacLeod snorted. “Don’t be foolish. Next you’ll be telling me you’ve seen faeries or aliens. It’s far more likely these pirates stumbled over a pre-League colony that went further than most. Blake knows the Explorer Corps finds plenty of those, and they’ve never been paragons of advancement.”

“I disagree, Precentor,” Watts said stubbornly. “These machines are fragile, yes, but they’re _complex_. If we look at the control boards we start seeing microscopic transistors, more than most computers we know of. This is work that would be difficult for us to replicate under ideal conditions, and it’s in _consumer electronics_ , not military-grade or government-issue hardware. Whoever created this design knows what they’re doing and how to adapt it to multiple different uses. And then there’s this.” Watts reached down to the computer and pulled out the powerpack. “What do you make of this, sir?” he asked, handing the pack to MacLeod.

MacLeod weighed the pack thoughtfully. “A simple lithium-ion battery, I’d wager,” he said. “A reasonable choice for something lightweight and portable.”

“Which is what we thought too,” Watts agreed. “Until we tried draining one. The adepts have one on a test stand drawing what we believe to be the full charge. It’s been there for three days with no effective power loss.”

“Huh.” MacLeod blinked, nonplussed.

“Has been our reaction too, yes sir. We’re still assessing the danger of cutting one of the packs open to see what’s inside. But look at the label.” Watts took the battery from MacLeod and turned it over to reveal the manufacturer’s label. _Lithium-Handwavium Battery_ it proclaimed in bold letters, _Guaranteed Low-Quirk_.

MacLeod stared at the label, seeing the battery and the mystery computer with fresh eyes. “What does it mean, I wonder?” he said quietly. Watts shook his head.

“We don’t know,” he said. “‘Handwavium’ is a nonsense word so far as we can tell, and we don’t know what ‘quirk’ means in this context.”

“I had thought of rebuking you, Demi-Precentor,” MacLeod said, “but this is a mystery the Order needs to get to the bottom of. Do we know where the pirates found this?”

Watts shook his head. “They’re being cagey about it, so far none of the jumpship crew has let anything slip. However, we believe that the pirates stumbled over this ‘Fenspace’ place coreward of here, in the Trans-Coalsack region between us and Oberon.”

“Mm. Write up a report for dispatch to Terra, and get your samples ready to transport on the next ship headed inbound.” MacLeod said. “The First Circuit ought to hear of this, and quickly.”

~***~

**Procyon**  
 **19 January 3020**

Ships arrived at the edge of the system, appearing in ones or twos, blocky Republic battlewagons flying side by side with the spindly saucer-and-nacelle Starfleet explorers. A squadron of graceful wings all painted in wild splashes of color dropped out of subspace together and sailed as one to the far edge of the formation. At the center of all this activity a gigantic pill-shaped object, more asteroid than spacecraft, emerged and began to slowly trundle inwards towards the star.

Aboard the gigantic _GCSS Megaroad_ , force commander Gina Langley-Rhodes observed her fleet arriving with distinct satisfaction. As of today she commanded the single biggest fleet in Fen history, easily double the size of the force used to take down the Dark Tower in the Boskone War. All of this power was hers to command – at least for the next six months when the commands would rotate her back home – for the express purpose of protecting Earth from any dirty pirate sonofabitch who crossed her path. 

“All right,” she said. “ _Acclimator_ group, you’re on the zenith. _Resilience_ group on the nadir. _Gagarin_ wing Alpha, start seeding detectors at five-degree intervals along the non-standard approaches. Beta wing, you’re with _Megaroad_ at Junior’s pirate points. You’re the best spacers in the Convention, you’ve got your orders and you don’t need me yelling at you to do them,” she added wryly. “Let’s get to work.”

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _A People’s History of the Gernsback Expanse_ ” _by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3124):_

“The final line of defense was one nobody wanted to contemplate. Shortly after the conclusion of Sphere-Con, representatives from the United States, Russia and the People’s Republic of China approached the Great Justice command staff with a request/demand. The three major space powers acknowledged, grudgingly, that the Convention had the greater capability to detect and confront any invading enemy, and as a result the plan developed at Sphere-Con would be the plan going forward. However, the three nations also wanted to develop their own defensive line.

Their plan was to lift several hundred nuclear weapons into a medium Earth orbit, roughly 600 miles up, where they would sit and wait for any attempted incursion. If the Fen lines were overwhelmed, bypassed or otherwise compromised, the nuclear defense curtain would be able to shoot down or disable any invading forces that dared tried to land on Earth. The space power representatives were very firm on this: it was all well and good to trust space superiority to the Crazy Eddie Squadron, but under no circumstances should the homeworld be totally defenseless if the Great Justice task force failed.

The Secret Masters of Fandom were not enthused by the nuclear curtain idea. The lack of nuclear weapons in Fenspace was one of the oldest and most enduring legacies of the First Fen’s pacifism. People who encouraged or even suggested the creation of a nuclear arsenal were routinely ostracized by Fen society at large. The looming threat of possible invasion, however, brought an end to one of the longest-standing taboos in Fen culture. The Secret Masters agreed to the nuclear curtain, on one condition: that authority to arm and fire the missiles would be placed in the hands of the United Nations, not any single country…”

~***~

Arheima, Dnieper  
18 March 3020

Ser Alicia,

Please excuse my lack of correspondence these last few months, as my Company and I have been busy. The good works we have done these last few years are starting to see tangible benefits. Raiding has dropped quite dramatically, especially since we finally rooted out the Band of the Damned from their hiding place near Antallos. The lack of piracy has also decreased the amount of “piracy” plaguing the Outworlds. Without actual pirates to hire or hide behind the Dragon and the Fox cannot strike as easily against the Outworlders. The enemy does not know us, but they fear us and in that my Company and I take great pride.

The search continues as it always does. Some days I despair of ever finding it, but as you taught us a Knight never gives into despair. It may not be our fate to see the Hill as living men but that does not mean we can shirk our obligations! We owe the people of the Periphery much, much more than we can ever repay. These people remember the Star League poorly, and with good reason. The damage our ancestors wrought in the Reunification Wars echoes on every Periphery world. A man from the Western Alliance’s time once wrote “Show me a one-world government and I’ll show you the mass graves.” There is a monument in Arheima built on top of a mass grave, a memorial to the victims of the SLDF “pacification” of this planet. Such is the eternal monument to the Cameron dynasty in the Periphery: peace through death.

It is a fitting fate that we who seek clarity of vision above all else should have the scales torn from our eyes in this place. The longer I spend on the edges of the Inner Sphere, the more I am convinced that Our Lady’s plan does not involve the reconstruction of the Star League. Even if such a thing was possible, by the lords, by our cousins or by ourselves, all it would accomplish is shed blood and misery in a world that has enough of it already. Whatever her motives, Our Lady wishes to find a new path, this I am sure of, and it is our fate to guard her and the Hill until that new path is found.

It is to this end that I wish to speak of lastly. Word has come to us here that the warlord of Antallos is amassing an army, for what purpose I do not yet know. Vorax has extended an invitation to the Grey Knights – he knows our reputation but not our true intent – and I believe we will embark on this pirate mission. My visions have been confused as of late, and Our Lady seems concerned in the few times I have communed with her. I feel in my heart that this army of Vorax’s is connected to the Hill in some fashion, and even if I am mistaken then the opportunity to eliminate multiple pirate bands in defense of the innocent is too good an opportunity to pass up.

It is likely we will be out of communication for some time. I have already contacted Ser Grigori to ask him to assign some of his knights to watch our patrol zone until our return. If we do not return, know then we have served Our Lady and her Hill with gladness and honor, and we shall await you and our siblings on that Hill when the day comes.

In glory for the world to come,

Ser Alexander

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **20 June 3021**

Port Krin was a terrible place. The city proper was overcrowded, underbuilt, populated by the lost and tormented by the worst people in the Inner Sphere. Desperation was thick in the air, everywhere but the oldest part of the city where the warlord kept the old Hegemony streets clean and the buildings nicely scrubbed by an army of slaves.

The whole place made Alexander Harris’s hands twitch. He wanted nothing more than to return to the dropship, get his broadsword and start slicing up everybody running this den of misery. And perhaps one day he would; his duty demanded no less. For the moment though, Alex let himself dream happy dreams of bringing justice to the rulers of this place while mounting the steps into the old governor’s palace.

~***~

Aidan Vorax, the so-called Coordinator of Antallos, met Alex in his office, a richly appointed place with old wood from Terra and other luxuries left over from the planet’s founding. “Captain Harris,” he said with an extended hand and a wide, mostly sincere smile. “Welcome to Port Krin. Your mechwarriors are settling in nicely, yes?”

“For the most part, Mr. Vorax,” Alex replied. “Your offer made me curious, especially as to why you wanted my people. We don’t have the best reputation around.”

“Yes, that.” Vorax’s smile slipped a little and came back a little less sincere and a little more brittle. “Your company wasn’t my first choice, I admit, but...”

“That would’ve been my call, Mr. Harris,” Alex half turned and saw a tall, gaunt man in an immaculate business suit enter the room. “Your people are survivors, and this may be a dangerous target. The more survivors the better.”

“Ah, Captain Harris, Colonel Johann Frankenstein, our force commander.” The man in question nodded but didn’t deign to shake hands, which was fine by Alex. The man resembled a carnivorous reptile in a silk suit, and he knew the name. Johann Frankenstein and the Frankenstein’s Monsters operated one of the biggest slaver rings in the coreward Periphery. Neither his Grey Knights or Ser Grigori’s Blues had ever managed to get close enough to the bastard to eliminate him.

Alex’s mood brightened a little. This mystery job was starting to have unexpected dividends already.

“Colonel,” Alex nodded back.

“Oh,” Vorax said, “I almost forgot. Captain, here.” He handed Alex a bag of lapel pins, a small shield with a picture of a bat-winged vulture. “These are for your people, they’ll mark you out as part of my personal guard for the duration of your stay. The perks will come in... useful, I suspect.”

Alex pulled a pin out the bag and fixed it to his shirt. “Very fashionable,” he said dryly. “So what’s this very dangerous target we’re supposed to survive?”

“The target is a world in the Deep Periphery downspin and a little rimward from Antallos, near the edge of the Wastes. One of my men, a jumpship captain ferrying around a lance of no-hopers, stumbled across it. The natives call it ‘Fenspace.’”

“Fenspace,” Alex said thoughtfully. “Interesting name for a planet. In fact it doesn’t sound like a very planet-y name at all. You sure your captain wasn’t huffing coolant?”

Vorax scowled. “The man is wholly trustworthy, Captain,” he huffed. _And that means nothing coming from you_ , Alex thought. “Besides, even if some of his descriptions are a bit, ah, fanciful, he brought back tangible proof of the place’s existence.” Vorax gestured grandly to a block of thin plastic sitting on his desk. “This little beauty, for example. A portable terminal almost as good as the old Star League administrative mainframe in the basement! And my man brought us dozens of the things!”

Alex gave the computer – really? That small thing was a functional mainframe? – a considering look. “Huh,” he huh’d. “That doesn’t look Star League, or like any other kind of lostech I’ve ever seen.”

“Not really the point, Mr. Harris,” Frankenstein said smoothly. “They’re valuable, and the Coordinator has the location of a world capable of building large numbers of them. Combine that with whatever other lostech is in the system – the man talked about space stations, for example – and the other potential assets in the Fenspace system... we’re looking at quite the potential windfall.”

Alex looked at Frankenstein. “Other assets?” he asked neutrally. Frankenstein smiled for the first time since he entered the office, and Alex felt his instinctive dislike for the man increase exponentially.

“Well,” he said, “there’s been a bit of a crunch on the markets, and quite a few people living there so I’m told. No doubt they can supply a few non-essentials.”

“Of course,” Alex said. _O Lady who guides the future_ , he thought, _forgive thy servant for he is going to_ really _enjoy putting two PPCs through this bastard’s back_.

“We can discuss how to divide the profits once we’ve earned them, gentlemen,” Vorax said briskly. “We have plenty of time after all.”

Alex blinked. “That’s a surprise,” he said. “I thought we’d be leaving soon. Or, like, right now.”

“Feh,” Frankenstein snorted. “If it were up to me I would, but the Coordinator thinks we need more men for this job.”

“Colonel, please,” Vorax replied. “Benson was very specific that there are millions of people at least living on Fenspace. One company, not even one as skilled as yours, cannot pacify that many people. No, we need at least another full company, maybe two, as well as enough dropships to haul goods back to Port Krin for export.” His tone was patient and a bit tired. Alex got the impression that the two had had this argument more than a few times before.

“Right, right,” Frankenstein sighed. “You’re paying the bills and my men are staying amused, so I shouldn’t complain. That said I should get back to them before they try and burn down the district. Again. Mr. Harris.” He nodded again and strode out of the office. Alex and Vorax watched him go, and then the Coordinator looked down at his desk.

Alex took the hint and excused himself. Outside the palace, he found the groundcar he arrived in still waiting on the street. “Coordinator said I’m to take you wherever you want, then wait until you’re ready to head back to port,” the driver said.

“Where’s the best bar for a mechwarrior who’s down on his luck and needs to get drunk in a hurry?” Alex asked.

“That’d be the Split Axe, in the north district.”

“Perfect.”

~***~

The Split Axe lived up – or maybe down – to its description. The interior of the bar was dark, dirty and full of noise and questionable people. Alex sidestepped an unconscious tug at the door and sidled up the bar. Ordering a pint of the local brew, he took a pull of the surprisingly not-terrible beer and considered his options. Vorax was putting together a big force, something capable of reducing a mid-size world. That suggested that this ‘Fenspace’ would be a tough nut to crack, or this wasn’t going to be just a raid.

_Conquest, then? It seems unlikely, especially considering the distance between Antallos and the Wastes. Vorax may have ambitions but only a state has the range and striking power to hold two words so far apart. Right, Star Captain,_ he thought. _Break it down like they taught you in sibko. Whatever the end goal is, Vorax needs men, and a lot of them, to conquer Fenspace. Frankenstein and his goons are one company, the Knights another. There are no other company-strength pirates in this area, and most of the mercenaries work for the Fox and Dragon. Freelancers, then? If so, then there is a fault line..._

Alex was so busy working the angles that he missed the stocky blond man stumbling up to the bar next to him. He started slightly when the blond slammed a large fist down on the old plastiwood bar top and barked “DRINK!”

“What’ll it be, buddy?” The bartender didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow at this commotion.

“Something cheap and rich with alcohol. And make it a double.”

“Dropship fuel, gotcha. Be right up.”

Alex eyed his new drinking companion. He was wearing the badge that marked him out as one of Vorax’s recent hires, and despite everything didn’t seem happy about it. The bartender returned with two shots of rotgut in his hands, and the newcomer down them both one after another. “What do I owe you?” the man asked after a shudder.

The bartender eyed the badge on the man’s lapel. “Free of charge, sir. Coordinator Vorax is picking up the tab for all his people.”

The man’s mouth twisted. “Well isn’t that just sweet of him,” he mumbled. “Bring me another then.” The barman bustled off and Alex made a decision. He edged himself a little closer to the blond.

“You present the appearance of a man with a problem,” he said quietly. The man looked up and almost locked eyes with Alex until his eyes fell on the badge and the man’s expression hardened.

“And what if I do?” he challenged. Alex shrugged.

“Well, you’re not the only one,” he said. “It’s a tough galaxy. Alexander Harris, Grey Knights.”

“Andreas Staedele, Buron Cav.”

Alex cocked an eyebrow. “I know that name. I thought the Buron Cav were Davion-exclusives?”

“We were,” Steadele snarled. “Then we took heavy losses on a cross-border raid and that bastard Duke refused to pay off our contract. We came out here to find a freelance job and Vorax hired our jumpship out from under us. No money, no supplies, no way off this stinking rock and Vorax offers us a job.” He shrugged. “It’ll pay the bills, keep us going.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“It’s a job. We do the job, we get paid.” Steadele said in the tone of a man trying to convince himself. “It’s no different than the raids we did on the Combine when we worked for the Suns. Do the job, get paid and then get the hell out.”

Alex made a noncommittal sound and took another drink of his beer. “You sound vaguely like a man of conscience, Andreas,” he said. “Odd sort of thing to find here on Antallos.”

“That’s rich, coming from a professional lowlife. What rock did Vorax find you under?”

“Dnieper,” Alex replied easily. He didn’t begrudge Staedele his suspicions, it meant that his cover was still good. “Now here’s the question,” he went on. “If a man of conscience sees an act of evil about to happen, do you think he should take a chance and do something? Or just knuckle under and do his job?”

Steadele gulped down his drink and gave Alex a very odd look. “It depends,” he said. “If the man has others relying on him he shouldn’t take any damn fool chances. But if the chances aren’t damn foolish then...” he trailed off.

Alex nodded. “That’s not a bad answer,” he said. “In fact, I like that answer so much that I’ll buy you a drink. Barkeep! Get my friend here a beer, the Terran-style stuff that tastes like recycled horse piss. Can never get enough of that.”

~***~

Quite a few hours later, the entry gangway at the dropship _Distant Home_ was the scene of a minor booze-related incident. Two inebriated mechwarriors, one tall and dark, the other short and blond, stumbled up the ramp singing something that might’ve been related to “Barnacle Bill the Sailor” in a butchered patios of English, Romanian and German. The noise alerted the sentries who, with the company commander still in the city, alerted the dropship’s captain. She in turn took a shotgun and a couple of the brawnier infantrymen down to the lock to chastise the drunks.

It came as a great surprise to learn that one of the two drunks in question was the Buron Cav’s normally quite sober commander.

“Andreas?” Maria Steadele exclaimed, seeing her husband drunk and disorderly. “What in God’s name happened to you?!”

“We drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud!” The taller man said happily. “You must be the missus, I’ve heard quite a bit about you and I’m sure I’ll forget the embarrassing bits come morning. Ser Alexander Harris, Knight-Captain of the Grey, Lady’s blessings be upon you, madam.” Harris sketched an approximation of an elegant bow than was ruined by him losing balance and faceplanting into the _Distant Home_ ’s ramp. “Wait, no, hang on, I’ve got this,” he said, muffled by the deckplates.

Maria gave the drunken mechwarrior a distasteful glance and collected her husband without a backward look. Harris laid there until he heard the lock close, then rolled over and picked himself up with a faint smile. “Our Lady’s plans are obscure, but her nets are wide,” he said softly as he strode back down the gangway and out towards the waiting Sir Robin.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _ Analysis of weapons and tactics used during Vorax’s War” _ _by Tai-sa Jiro Takahashi, DCMS (ret.) (Draconis Combine Ministry of Information, 3050):_

“The GUARDIAN program was the most audacious attempt at creating an early-warning picket system at the time, and it was entirely due to the use of handwavium and handwavium-derived technologies that it was even possible. The Sea of Time – the fifty light year radius sphere centered on Tellus – was picketed with dedicated sensors intended to pick out KF events and relay the data back to the central command center. The central command watched well over 300 separate stars by the time of the Battle of Tellus, a level of direct control more commonly seen in space defense systems surrounding capital worlds. 

GUARDIAN’s major drawback, of course, was that unlike most SDS it could not fire on intruding vehicles. The system was strictly observe-and-report only. But this was according to Fen design, as the most likely target for hostiles within the Sea of Time was Tellus, the most likely route for intruders came through Procyon and with jump traffic nonexistent there was no danger of a false positive…

(…) Fen arsenals of the time consisted mostly of aerospace warfare assets, laughably underpowered and under-defended by Succession War standards but highly maneuverable and dangerous in swarm attacks. This was the central Fen strategy during the opening phase of Vorax’s War, to use speed and maneuverability against the comparatively slow dropships and effectively wear out invaders before they reached the planet’s surface…

(…) Ground combat was considered a difficult challenge by Fen and Tellurian generals, more so because Tellurian armor still operated on techniques popular in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. While Spheroid-grade armor had been produced in small quantity during the interval between First Contact and the Battle of Tellus, it was still experimental and couldn’t be produced in quantities to refit more than a single tank lance much less the entirety of the Tellurian army. Instead, Tellurians turned to Fen technology to make their heavy armor faster and more capable of dodging battlemech fire. The T-99 hovertank, ancestor of the Rasalhaugian T-900 used against DCMS forces during the Last Succession War and against Clan forces in the Clan War, was developed during Vorax’s War as a rapid-response unit for intercepting landed dropships and enemy battlemechs…

_Tai-sa (ret.) Takahashi Jiro is a former DCMS mechwarrior involved with anti-piracy operations along the outer edge of the Pesht District during the Last Succession War. Tai-sa Takahashi currently teaches asymmetrical warfare tactics at Shu Zhang Mechwarrior Academy._

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Home Fronts: Earth at the Edge of Crisis_ ” _by Peter Cartwright (Ballantine, Tellus, 3025):_

“As the saying goes, adversity makes for strange bedfellows, and we were really up against it. It wasn’t quite that easy, there were always some egos that refused to be bruised, and more egos that bruised all too easily, but it all came together very easily. Which looking back on it surprises the hell out of me.

The President ordered most of our strategic assets recalled, especially from Europe. There was a lot of bitching, mostly from career generals who’d spent their time empire building overseas. Overall, though, I think most everybody was happy to see us leave. It was the end of an era in a lot of ways; US military forces had been in Europe for just under a century when the President issued the recall. I don’t think anybody really expected that to ever end and then it just _did_ , with little fanfare the bases were closed down and handed over to NATO and all our personnel and materiel were shipped home as fast as we could.

It wasn’t a goodwill gesture on the President’s part, of course, just simple pragmatism: the United States covers huge amounts of territory and for the first time in our nation’s history we were facing potential attack against every single square mile. America could afford to spread its armed forces out all over the world when we could secure our borders with a handshake and the Navy. Now we were facing space-based assault and everything was a potential target. The National Guard was brought up to full readiness in September. Civil defense infrastructure which had been quiet so long nobody remembered the old drills was set up again, which caused some amusing fuck-ups that caught media attention.

Russia followed suit, pulling back their armies and preparing to defend their core. There was no way in hell that the Russians would be able to cover most of the country but then again they didn’t really have to since most of that country was wilderness. Any attacker who landed east of the Caucasus and north of Kazakhstan would find themselves in miles and miles of miles and miles. Instead the Russians focused on securing the western end of the country, Moscow of course but also the major industrial centers. They were also the first ones to implement urban blackouts in the event of a night attack.

China… the Chinese never felt comfortable discussing their plans with the UN. Even after the attack a lot of their preparatory work remained a close secret. They had a big population, big industry and it wasn’t a secret that most of the goods on the _Drakon_ had ‘Made In China’ stamped on them in pretty visible spots. Privately the Joint Chiefs were skeptical about China’s ability to handle an attack, especially if they were unable to go to Plan A and just nuke the offenders. It didn’t help that it turned into an excuse to rattle sabers between the PRC, the ROC and Japan. The Beijing government weren’t fools, they knew damn well that a good half of the ‘advanced technology’ in the _Drakon_ hoard came from Taiwan, not the mainland, and there were off-the-record rumblings about retribution should invaders hit the wrong China. And Japan, well… there’s a lot a blood there, all of it bad. We did our best to keep things together in public, even if the Secretary once noted that a dropship landing on Yasukuni would solve a lot of problems.

South America hammered out a defense pact amongst themselves with lightning speed. It didn’t hurt that Peru and Brazil in particular had orbital backing. We doubted that South America would be a huge target, but we offered what we could just in case: the _USS Theodore Roosevelt_ was stationed in the South Atlantic, and we had the _Ronald Reagan_ making a long patrol between San Diego and Ecuador to keep an eye on the Pacific.

Africa was something of a pain. Almost nobody outside the continent wanted to take responsibility for Africa, including us, I’m quite sorry to say. Even the Chinese, who’d pumped billions into the economy and infrastructure over the years, were prioritising their defenses, something that in the aftermath caused no small amount of trouble for the PRC. The majority of African nations were woefully unequipped and potentially easy targets for an attack, despite the bluster of groups like the Libyan Aerospace Force. The only bright spot in the African situation came from India: the Indian Army handed over a full battalion of T-99 hovertanks and crews to a UN/African Union task force specifically to hunt invaders. 

Likewise, India and South East Asia had themselves covered well enough, as did Pacifica. Most of the countries in that general area had backing from orbit, which meant they were as well prepared as some Western countries.

Finally, we had the Mutual Nuclear Defense Agreement. To I think just about everybody who grew up with the Cold War it was a damned bizarre thing to have mutual control of a ring of orbiting nuclear weapons, but it was the inner ring of the defense. The Fen if nobody else were adamant on the subject: it would’ve been nice if they weren’t necessary, but better firing them off in orbit than risking armies of advanced soldiers landing on our planet…”

_Peter Cartwright was Deputy Secretary of State during the de Jongh Administration (3019 – 3025). He is currently an instructor for the Convention Diplomatic Service. This is his first book._

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _A People’s History of the Gernsback Expanse_ ” _by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3124):_

“In the final days before Vorax’s War began, the Convention and United Nations put together a strong and elegant defensive line around Tellus. Early warning could be easily achieved through the GUARDIAN system, and the advance defensive squadron was capable of stopping anything short of actual warships. It was also fatally flawed.

The entire plan had been built upon a set of assumptions and extrapolations derived from everything the inhabitants of Tellus knew about their neighbors, as well as the debriefing of the Drakon’s former pirates. The Crazy Eddie Squadron was positioned according to the assumption that a veteran jumpship captain like Matthew Benson wouldn’t risk his ship in unfamiliar stars, that without proper charts and secure in the understanding that nobody from Tellus could chase him, he would simply retrace his steps and use a single path in and out of the Sea of Time. The reasoning was sound, the logic compelling, and so the heaviest weapons in Fenspace were placed right along the expected path.

This assumption would prove costly.”

~***~

**30 November 3020**

The space around Sol was filled with stars of all sizes and colors, many of which were designated as possible (or actual) colonies by the Fen. Chi 1 Orionis was not one of the region’s great winners. Roughly thirty light years from Sol, this yellow dwarf looked like a reasonably sunlike star with good prospects for colonization, and it might’ve been at one point. Circumstances deemed it otherwise, however: originally part of a trinary group with another yellow dwarf and a red giant, Chi 1 Orionis was ejected from the group when the red giant reached the end of its life and exploded. The resulting shifts in gravity caused much of Chi 1’s outer system to rocket out in all directions, and the mass ejections scoured the surfaces of what remained. Thirty million years later humans from Sol would take a look around, note the partially-melted remains of the inner system and a Neptune-sized planet that was all that remained of Chi 1’s inner gas giant, and then move on. A handful of probes remained in the system to poke at the remains of a cosmic catastrophe.

High above the star’s south pole, space bent around double and ruptured, heralding the arrival of a KF drive starship. Then another bubble popped, and another. Space around Chi 1 Orionis became very active as jumpships unfurled radiators and sails to begin the last few hundred hours of charging before reaching their destination.

The GUARDIAN probes a few astronomical units inward of the jump points took notice, washed the data through their control systems and then sent it on back to central.

~***~

**The Watchtower, Luna**  
 **30 November 3020 1501 hrs UTC**

Contrary to cliche the alert didn’t come in at the middle of the graveyard shift or any other point when the Watchtower would’ve been mostly empty. The warning buzzer buzzed, the situation board lit up and a room full of operators, controllers and whatnot stopped to take a look before the room exploded into activity once more.

The Supreme Commander emerged from her office and took one look at the board. “Has the Squadron moved to intercept?”

“No word from Procyon yet, Commander,” the communications officer replied. Haruhi frowned at that. The GUARDIAN probes were meant as an early-warning system. By rights the Crazy Eddie Squadron should have sent their report and moved to engage.

“Commander!” The sensor operator cried, his voice tinged with panic. Haruhi felt a sense of rising dread crawl up her spine. “GUARDIAN reporting KF emergence at Chi 1 Orionis! They flanked us!”

“Message to Procyon!” Haruhi snapped in her hardest command voice. “ _Immediate recall, Omega priority! All ships to return to Sol NOW!_ ” She whirled on the GUARDIAN operator. “Time until the enemy can jump?”

The poor bastard shook his head. “One hundred fifty-six hours, thirteen minutes.”

“No no no no no dammit _no_ ,” Haruhi muttered. “Too soon, too goddamned soon...” She looked around at the sea of pale faces around her and took a deep breath. “Right,” she continued in that same iron-hard command voice, “bring us to Condition Red, alert SMOFcon, the UN and all second-line commanders. As of right now, we are at war.”


	5. The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

### Fenspace, 30 November – 7 December 3020

**Dropship** _**Nightmare Moon** _ **, Chi 1 Orionis**

“Right,” Johann Frankenstein looked at his assembled jumpship captains. “Now that we’re here and charging, it’s time to hand out final coordinates. For the cautious among you we’ve got the zenith and nadir points. From there Fenspace is a nine day trip inward at one gee. Of course,” he added, “the rest of us will have been down for a week or more by the time you get there. If you don’t mind that.

“The point I’m aiming for is here.” Frankenstein pointed at a spot on the map between the planet and its star. “Big enough to hold the fleet and still close enough to the planet to get there in less than a day. Now, I know that at least one of you fools feels like trying his luck, so there’s also this point.” The map zoomed in on the planet, showing a single moon orbiting it. “The _Rogue Elephant_ used this point on the way out, but I don’t recommend it. It’s the hardest to hit and the smallest, too small for all of us to jump in at once. If too many of you try you’ll overlap fields and kill each other.” Frankenstein smiled sharkishly. “So let’s all be careful out there.”

~***~

_Transcript of SMOFcon emergency session, 30 November 3020:_

_(in attendance, SMOF-01 – SMOF-25 plus Philip Danchekker, UNOOSA, Burgess Hale, unaffiliated and KJ DuPree, Soviet War Minister)_

**SMOF-01:** What’s the situation?

 **SMOF-02:** In one hundred fifty hours, give or take, a fleet of jumpships is going to arrive somewhere in the Sol system. They’ll release dropships and all hell is going to break loose.

 **SMOF-01:** The fleet at Procyon?

 **SMOF-02:** Can’t engage in time. The jumpships arrived at Chi 1 Orion, nineteen light years from Procyon. I’ve ordered the fleet back to Sol at top speed but... they’ll still be at least two days out when the jumpships get here.

 **SMOF-18:** Let’s get one thing out of the way. Is this force hostile? Are we panicking over a merchant fleet? Major Hale, can you provide any background on this?

 **Hale:** I’m not a jumpship engineer, but based on what information Commander Suzumiya gave me... nope. That’s a lot of ships, more than any Periphery merchant would have together outside of a trade hub. Benson sold the coordinates and this is who bought. Could be pirates or Successor State, can’t tell from here.

 **SMOF-04:** With the fleet inbound from Procyon we’re left without a lot of assets. There’s a few ships on maintenance cycle, some ships that didn’t have the interstellar range. Mostly fighters and light combat craft.

 **SMOF-03:** Will it be enough?

 **SMOF-02:** Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know. I think we’ve got enough that we can stall them until Crazy Eddie gets back but Yuki tells me the margins aren’t promising.

 **Danchekker:** I’ve passed the information off to the Security Council. World leaders will be making statements shortly. The curtain will be activated and standing ready tomorrow. That’s all I know at the moment.

 **SMOF-01:** Thank you, Philip. Now, is there an idea on where to reinforce? Do we take the zenith or nadir point?

 **SMOF-07:** My minister of war has a plan.

 **SMOF-01:** Ah, yes. Please, go ahead.

 **DuPree:** Okay. We shouldn’t put our forces at the standard points, they’re too far away and if we pick the wrong one then we’re caught out hours or days away from Earth. We put our ships in cislunar, as close to the Earth-Sol L1 point as we can. It’s a pirate point and we know that the invaders know it ‘cause the _Elephant_ jumped in there. If they show up at the zenith or nadir we can harass them on the trip inward, and if they come in at the pirate point we can take them down right as they come out.

 **SMOF-04:** Interesting. How much of our force do you think we should use?

 **DuPree:** Not everything. Mars and Venus are at conjunction, so we should hold back forces to watch them. They’ll probably be okay but we ought to be cautious.

~***~

_**Nightmare Moon** _ **, Chi 1 Orionis**

“Got a question,” one of the pirate leaders said. “What about these space stations and dome habs the _Elephant_ guys were talking about?

Frankenstein shrugged. “We leave them,” he said. “They’re all eggshell shit, once we’ve got the dirtpounders under control we can negotiate trade or just blast them if they get uppity.”

“I don’t know,” the pirate rubbed the back of his head. “Dome city lostech sounds like it might be worth something.”

“Maybe,” agreed Frankenstein. “But if you want to miss out on a big inhabited planet with factories and go chasing after a few broken scraps of tech, that’s your loss and our gain.”

~***~

**Low Earth Orbit**

With invaders on their way, evacuation was the name of the game. Between the incoming dropships, the Fen response and the looming threat of the nuclear curtain nobody wanted their valuable satellites and space stations in the path. “Get out of the way or get stepped on” was the constant refrain throughout cislunar and moving companies worked around the clock to ensure that the most vulnerable (and valuable) hardware was somewhere safe.

Four hundred kilometers above Earth, two spacecraft drifted together. One was a traditional Fen design, built mainly from recycled cargo containers and old jet engines. The other was a bulky white cylinder with outstretched solar panels and what looked like a windmill attached to the front of it. The Fen craft edged up slowly towards the other’s docking port, extending long cradle arms to grab along the sides of the cylinder.

Spacecraft and station came together with a gentle bump. Floating alongside, Bobfred Kerman gave an approving nod. “Hard dock,” he radioed. “ _Skylab_ and _Thrillmaster_ are hooked in, good job boss.”

“I do take pride in good work,” Jebediah Kerman radioed back. “Burning in thirty, so get back in here.”

Inside the _SC Thrillmaster_ Naedial Warringer rubbed her temples, staring at the wholly inadequate display in her office/cabin. “We need a plot table,” she groused. “This is just not the way it’s supposed to be.”

From his perch inside the desktop Jebediah grinned back at her. “Told you,” he said.

“Oh hush,” she replied. “Where’re we taking this one?”

“Parking orbit,” Jeb said. “Six thousand klicks up, right between the Van Allens. We’ve got a slot booked between _Tiangong_ and _ISS_.”

“Right, right,” Naedial said. “After we move _Skylab_ , who’s next?”

“Um, let’s see. _Salyut 10_ needs to move to parking, after that _Preiswert_ and then we’re seeding low orbit with Xaviers.”

“No rest for the wicked, then. Get the boys back aboard and let’s move this tin can.”

~***~

**The Watchtower, Luna**

Haruhi Suzumiya was moving. It was a thing of hers, something that started long before handwavium and Fenspace when she was just another anonymous student in the crowd, she always thought better when she was moving. And so instead of staying in the command center like a good little supreme overlord Haruhi instead paced recklessly around the Watchtower, controlling events from her omnitool and with her loyal aide Yuki standing by for the hard parts.

“Another email from evacuation command,” Yuki said quietly. “The major stations will be all in safe orbits by H-minus one day at this rate.”

“Excellent news,” Haruhi said. “What about the other job?”

“Xavier Protocol satellites are being emplaced now,” Yuki replied. The Xavier Protocol network was one of the miracles of the early terraforming movement. At one point a bright young spark realized that Mars and Venus didn’t have the powerful and complex magnetosphere Earth did, and without one the terraforming was doomed to a slow death by solar wind. The answer was to create an artificial magnetosphere using specialized satellites, thereby protecting Mars and Venus in the short to medium term and buying time to find a more permanent solution.

Faced with the sudden prospect of lots of nuclear weapons going off in low orbit, however, the Xavier Protocol suddenly became more important around Earth. Great Justice had “borrowed” most of the spare Xaviers and were now spreading a secondary magnetosphere below the nuclear curtain, in the hopes that the added field strength would deflect stray radiation. “Crystal Tokyo and Helium are still registering complaints about the use of the Xaviers, however,” Yuki said. There was a faint chiming noise and she tilted her head to one side. “There’s one now, in fact,” she added.

Haruhi scowled. “Tell them that requisitioning their spares to keep the curtain from accidentally destroying civilization-as-we-know-it is a small price to pay,” she said. “If that doesn’t work, tell them that Great Justice will pay for any satellites damaged in the attack. And if _that_ doesn’t work,” she continued, whirling on her aide with murder in her eyes, “remind them that _I know where they live_ and I’m not above putting horse heads in people’s beds!”

“So noted,” Yuki deadpanned. Haruhi’s momentary ire deflated in the face of Yuki’s indifference and she resumed her pacing, Yuki trotting obediently behind.

A few minutes passed in silence before Haruhi spoke again. “Yuki,” she said, “tell me the truth. Will it work?”

Yuki hesitated a fraction. “The data isn’t certain,” she replied. “We believe that we will be able to prevent the worst-case scenario.” By which she meant a massive electromagnetic pulse destroying every piece of electronics over an entire hemisphere or more, throwing the world into total chaos and leading to burning cities and lost hats. “At the same time, we expect there will be burn-throughs along the Xavier boundary, and it’s likely that one or more warheads will detonate below the shield. There will be severe communications disruption at a minimum.”

Haruhi sighed. “I was afraid you’d say something like that,” she said. “You’ve raised this with Danchekker, right?”

“Of course.”

“What about debris?”

“That all depends on how hard we hit them and where,” Yuki replied. “The further from Earth the less likely we’ll see serious problems. The closer we get the more likely it is we see ablation issues. However, all the debris will most likely either fall directly to Earth or will be in orbits with very low periapsis.”

“So even if we junk all the dropships it’s not a persistent problem,” Haruhi said. Yuki nodded.

“Not permanently, though if the curtain is used we may see issues with spalling as well as high-energy particles in the low orbits for several weeks, possibly months. The area will almost certainly be a navigation hazard without deflectors or sufficient armor.”

“Great, another thing on the pile.”

~***~

**Dropship** _ **Brave Sir Robin,**_ **Chi 1 Orionis**

Alex Harris let the wardroom holotank go dark and stared moodily at the blank space beyond. Around him his assembled seconds, a collection of Knights and ship crew, tried to process the briefing Frankenstein had given them.

“We have to do something,” the _Sir Robin_ ’s captain said quietly. “Warn them, something.” Alex looked up sharply.

“Sorry Ethan,” he said, “I left the HPG in my other pants.”

“Captain… Ser Alex, please. We cannot just _let_ these filth attack this world!”

“What would you have me do, Ethan?” Alex demanded. “Detach the dropships and start firing on the fleet? Even if we could pull that off, and I am not totally sure we could, we couldn’t kill all of them before somebody jumps through to Fenspace, and we’d be dead either way.”

“All right, all right, _fine_. We cannot attack now but we can still warn them. _Pridwen_ ’s jump systems are better-maintained than any of these pirate clunkers. We can jump ahead of them and broadcast a warning, if nothing else. Give them a chance to prepare themselves.”

Alex drummed his fingers on the wardroom table. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “How many ships do you think could make it through the smaller point?”

Ethan looked thoughtful. “If Frankenstein is right two, maybe three jumpships before the entry bubbles start overlapping.”

Harris nodded. “Then we will risk it. If the gods are with us we will be aligned between Frankensten’s goons and the planet, and even if the point is out of alignment we will be able to intercept before they hit atmosphere.”

“And if the gods are not with us?” Ethan asked.

“Then we die as befits our station, defending the weak.”

“Aff, Ser Alex, that we will. May the Great Father and Our Lady guide us to where we are needed.”

“Seyla.”

~***~

_**RRSC Peacemaker One**_ , Hyperspace between Procyon and Sol

The armada tore through the blue-white swirl of hyperspace. Benjamin Rhodes stared out the forward windows, scowling and leaning into the rushing stars as if he could force the ship forward with pure willpower.

“Come on, come _on_ ,” he muttered. “Engineer, give us more speed!”

“She’ll fly apart!”

“ _Fly her apart, then!_ ”

~***~

**East Africa, not too far from Mount Kenya National Park**

Legishon crouched behind a thorny bush, scanning the herd with a hunter’s experience eye. Mothers watched their young, the males stuck close to each other, much too tricky to take on alone. Towards the edge he noted the older animals grazing peacefully, a far better prospect than taking on a young male or a female with young. He chose an animal that seemed to have gained a limp in the recent past – a leftover from a failed hunt would be a good opportunity for tonight’s supper.

He crept low behind a line of bushes, taking care to stay downwind of the herd. He had his trusty old hardwood spear at hand, with a rifle strapped across his back just in case he wasn’t the only one lining up a meal today.

Thunder rolled in the distance. Legishon looked up for a second, puzzled. Only the occasional puffball of white cloud dotted the sky, nothing resembling a thunderhead anywhere, even on the horizon. He cursed under his breath as the herd seemed to alert as one, a small forest of ears all pricking up. Had he made a sound? Legishon willed himself to remain still, his muscles going taut as he tried to keep from moving. Even the smallest twitch would send the herd running at this point.

Again the thunder rolled, though this time it shifted from a single note to a long continuous drone rumbling through the ground, punctuated by a shrieking noise that stabbed at his ears. His peripheral senses picked up something big and hot rushing up behind him, accelerating like a brush firestorm.

He turned to face it and saw the last thing he expected to see. A monster of an aircraft, engines howling as it skimmed across the ground – so low that Legishon was certain he could reach up and touch it with his hands. For the briefest second he locked eyes with the pilot, a white woman who seemed just as surprised to see him. immediately, instinct took over and he threw himself to the ground, abandoning the hunt in favor of not getting run down by some lunatic in an old airplane. Arms crossed over his head he could feel the hot wind of its passing kick up a hail of dirt and stone all around him. The air pressure spiked for a brief moment and he thought that his eardrums might burst.

It passed after what felt like an age. When Legishon looked up he saw the aircraft chasing towards the horizon, along with the herd of antelope he’d been stalking scattering to the four winds. “You arrogant fucking pricks!” he roared after the departing airplane.

He fumbled for a moment, frantically patting pockets in the fear that he’d lost his lifeline in the wake of the plane’s passage. For a moment he worried that he’d dropped it in the open, but then his fingers closed on it, still wrapped in oilskins. Legishon pulled out his lifeline, a brand-new cameraphone with high-res camera and wavelink, a gift from his brother and just the thing for reporting poachers or asshole foreigners terrorizing the wildlife.

The plane banked around to the right and he held the phone up, taking a series of quick photographs before it vanished behind the hills. Legishon took a few moments to study the pictures, making sure there was enough detail to be useful to the authorities. Registration and flag on the tail, a name written under the cockpit, more than enough to track them down. It was certainly an unusual type, he thought – larger than the usual tourist planes, almost as large as an airliner but very different in design. Almost certainly a Fen job, considering the lack of useful wings.

Maybe that was why it flew so low? It’s wings had been clipped off.

It didn't matter. The pictures were emailed to the air transport regulatory board, along with his name and GPS-tagged location. Whoever that was, they were in for a nasty surprise. Disturbing the wildlife with an aircraft was a serious offense.

~***~

**77 Frigga**

“I’ll see you tomorrow Jet.”

“Tomorrow,” the cyber responded.

Both of them held each other, for as long as they could, just enjoying that feeling of being together. Ford placed a warm hand on Jet’s soft cheek. Jet closed her eyes, drinking in every last detail of the sensation.

“Good luck,” they wished each other, in unison.

Letting go was one of the hardest things either of them ever had to do.

~***~

**The Watchtower**

Even the greatest determination can’t stop fatigue. Haruhi Suzumiya had been burning the candle at both ends ever since the call came in from Chi 1 Orionis, and with just over two days to go she finally ran out of wick. Nobody outside her Watchtower office noticed at first, as she’d told everybody to stay the hell away. Ultimately, though, a tall, dark and cynical man came looking for the absent commander. Approaching the office, he was intercepted by a uniformed aide, who said, “I’m sorry, but the commander left strict instructions. No one is to go into her office and disturb her.”

The cynical-looking man gave the aide an odd look. “No one?” he asked.

“Absolutely no one on pain of the worst possible fate the commander could imagine.”

The man raised an eyebrow, then smiled faintly. “That’s adorable,” he said. “You’re adorable.” Stepping past the surprised aide, he tapped an override code into the lock and was inside the office before anyone else could react. Inside he found Haruhi slumped over at her desk in a restless half-sleep.

He gently shook Haruhi’s shoulder. “Hey, Haru-chan,” he said softly. “Wake up for a second.”

Haruhi jolted back to a semblance of consciousness. “Mrph? Kyo?”

“Who else?”

“Whaddya doin’ here?”

“Making sure you don’t kill yourself before the pirates kill us all.”

Haruhi gave Kyon a dirty look. “Not fucking funny.”

Kyon shrugged. “Eh, it seemed to fit the mood.”

“Nagaru?”

“He’s okay, misses his mom. Yuki and Kurumi are looking after him.”

“Good, that’s good...” a pause. “Kyo?”

“Mm?”

“You think we’re going to make this work?”

“Absolutely.” Kyon said with total conviction. “If I’ve learned one thing from you all these years, it’s that you don’t lose. Even if you have to cheat, you just don’t lose.”

“The other side’s already cheating,” Haruhi grumbled.

“I know, so we just have to cheat harder.” Kyon said. “Honey, we’ve got good people working on this, let them handle things for a few hours. Come on down to the hotel and get some sleep, you’re no good to us if you’re half-dead when they show up.”

Haruhi looked yearningly at the door, at escape into a warm bed with an equally warm husband and a good ten hours of oblivion. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I should be here, just in case. The couch is pretty comfortable and the bathroom’s got a shower.”

Kyon sighed. Haruhi was always impossible when she thought she was indispensable, and it was even worse when circumstance made that truer than he’d like. “Allright, Haruhi,” he said. “I’ll be down on fifteen if you need me-”

“Kyo, wait.” Haruhi stopped, started to say something, then stopped again. Finally, she said “Please stay.”

Kyon considered it. “Sure,” he said. “But! No biting.”

Haruhi looked offended. “I,” she said frostily, “do not _bite_.”

“That’s not what Mikuru says.”

“Well, she would say that.” Beat. “Wait, she said that?!”

“Okay,” Kyon replied. “Now I _know_ you’re too frazzled for coherent thought.” He helped Haruhi to her feet and half led, half carried her over to the ridiculously comfortable couch against the office wall. “C’mon, sleep,” he said. “Things won’t be better, but you’ll be better equipped to face them.”

“All right, all right,” Haruhi muttered. “You don’t have to be such a grouch about it.” She settled down into her husband’s embrace and closed her eyes.

A few minutes of silence passed, then Haruhi spoke again. “You know what I hate?” she said. “When I was little, back home we lived on a building near the coast, and every time there was a cyclone warning we’d all get into the best-protected room in the building and just wait. And wait. Nothing to do but wait for the cyclone to pass. Couldn’t run away, couldn’t stop it from killing us if it landed right on top. I hate waiting like this, I hate the helplessness.”

“I know,” Kyon said. “But we’re not exactly helpless here.”

“No, but we’re still waiting for the cyclone to hit.” Haruhi mumbled, and fell asleep.


	6. The Great Pirate Invasion

### Fenspace, 7 December – 22 December 3020

> “ _And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, / The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, / Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, / And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; / And the deep thunder peal on peal, afar / And near; the beat of the alarming drum / Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; / While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, / Or whispering with white lips— ‘The foe! they come! they come!’”_ ~ Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 25.

**25,000 kilometers Z+ off the Sol-Tellus L1 point**  
 **7 December 3020**

Two black and white arrowheads drifted in space a safe distance from the pirate point. From one ship’s cargo bay an array of complicated antennas unfolded, all the better to measure, monitor and spy upon anything that happened to suddenly appear at L1. The other ship held position roughly between the first ship and the point in a spot where the antennas wouldn’t be blocked but where it could get between the first ship and any hostile force. There were other sensors scattered around the L1 point, automated probes and the like to be sure, but those were limited in what they could deploy and were likely to be destroyed the instant a hyperspace bubble appeared. On the other hand, the good ship _Ptichka_ had the finest equipment, the ability to get out of harm’s way and the finest crew in Fenspace to fly her.

In _Ptichka_ ’s cockpit said fine crew of three went about their duties. The stocky man in the commander’s seat kept the shuttle in the right spot while the woman in the co-pilot’s seat kept an eye on the ship’s systems. Behind them at the main science station a second woman worked at the sensors, blue eyes skimming over the readouts. Nodding in satisfaction she opened a line to the command center back on Luna. “Watchtower, Hawkeye,” she said. “We’re deploying sensors and everything looks green.”

“ _Roger that, Hawkeye,”_ the Watchtower’s communications officer replied. “ _ETA to full deploy?”_

The sensor operator looked at her screens. “Call it five minutes, Watchtower.”

“ _Copy five minutes. Entry minus seven hours and counting.”_

“Quiet morning,” the commander said. The co-pilot hummed in reply. “Wonder what’s taking these idiots so long?”

“They’ll be here soon enough,” the co-pilot replied, giving the commander a sidelong look. “Which brings up a question. Why are you here, anyway?”

Mal Fnord shrugged. “I’m here because if we screw this up, I don’t see why I should be allowed to get away with it.” He glanced at his co-pilot. “So why are _you_ here?”

Sora Hasegawa shrugged in return. “Because when things go wrong somebody has to bail you out, and I’ve got experience.”

“Well, I suppose that’s fair,” Mal mused.

“Don’t look at me, guys,” Tina Weatheral said brightly from the science station. “I’m just here for the victory party sex.”

Mal chuckled. “Good to know somebody’s got the right priorities.” Sora shook her head ruefully.

“You’ve got a one-track mind, Weatheral,” she said.

“Enh, as a hobby it beats knitting,” Tina replied loftily. “Besides, I thought that was what you loved about me, sennnnnpai,” she drawled.

“Part of it,” Sora admitted. “But we’re on the clock here.”

A chime sounded on the science station. “Speaking of,” Tina said, punching a few buttons and reopening a channel to the Watchtower. “Watchtower, Hawkeye. Sensors are up and running, we’ll let you know the moment things start happening.”

“And speaking of that,” Mal said, opening his own channel to their companion ship. “Mustang, Hawkeye,” he radioed. “How’re you guys doing over there?”

“ _Bored, bored, so very bored,”_ a young girl’s voice came back over the speaker. “ _Everything’s good to go but nothing’s happening. I need action.”_

“Just stay on watch, Mel,” Mal replied. “We’ll be up to our asses in trouble soon enough.”

There was a loud, overly dramatic sign and finally Melchizedek said, “ _I know, I know. I’ll check back in twenty. Mustang out.”_

“So,” Tina said. “Anybody got any good dirty jokes?”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“Hello, and welcome to the History of the Periphery, episode 199: ‘Into the Fire’

In the fall of 3020 an entire regiment – the largest military force to ever grace the area with its presence since the Reunification Wars – sailed out of Antallos on its way into the Periphery. Like the Star League forces they were out there on a mission of conquest, but not for any officially noble purpose like the ‘reunification of humanity.’ No, these guys were in it for the money, and they thought they’d found the perfect place to attack: a previously-unknown industrialized colony in the Gernsback Expanse known as Fenspace.

If you live anywhere there’s a large Fen presence you’ve probably heard this story before. A lot of mythology has built up over the two generations since the Great Pirate Invasion (as the Fen like to call it, capital letters included) along with a wealth of terrible action movies, History Channel documentaries and so on. And of course there’s a lot of mythology. It makes for a great story: a band of castaways beating back some of the worst the Inner Sphere can throw at them with jury-rigged technology, ingenuity and a whole lot of luck, passing their trial by fire before exploding onto the galactic stage unified and with new purpose. The story’s even better because the invaders were pirates and therefore were unambiguous bad guys, what’s not to love?

The mythology behind the invasion only tells part of the story, though…”

~***~

**Great Justice Staging Area, Mare Imbrium**  
 **7 December 3020, H-minus 8 hours**

A single squadron.

Ben Rhodes hadn’t liked the idea, but when the plan for a ‘welcome mat’ for the invaders won the day his hands were tied on the matter. His idea, he had to show material support, and so only a single Roughriders squadron remained at Sol, without even a Peacemaker for support.

“God damn it, Blackrider,” grumbled Lt. Tomas Bogdanic. “The hell was he thinking?”

“Belay that,” snapped squadron commander Captain Charles Williamson. “We know what we need to do.” Sullen silence filled the ready room. With the forces they had on hand, the most the Roughriders could hope for was to take down a single dropship. The nuclear curtain would likely score the most kills – and wasn’t that a kick in the ass, hoping that nuclear weapons would go off all around the planet? Hopefully between the two they could keep this pirate scum from sullying Earth any more than it already was.

The plan itself was pretty simple: they’d stick to the smaller dropships, not biting off more than they could chew, killing or at least wounding the more nimble ships that stood a chance of evading the ‘Danelaw atomics. They had no idea what kind of fighter support the pirates had, but a pair of L-model VF-1 Valkyries fitted with the FAST RECON packages would give any _BattleTech_ -based hardware a nasty surprise.

“The best part of all,” Williamson continued, “it’s not going to be just one squadron.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, skipper?” John Ferguson, Bogdanic’s wingmate, asked.

The briefing room door opened and Williamson waved one more person in, a tiny redhead in a black and green flightsuit, her unit patch a Greek helm surmounting crossed spears. Several Roughriders sat up straighter as the woman came in.

“Boys and girls, meet your new best friend,” Williamson said. “Commander Alanna Briggs, Greenwood Security, CO of VFS-201.” Briggs turned and stood at attention, flashing a wide grin at the assembled pilots.

“Call me ‘Boots,’ gang,” she said. “My Spartans are bringing an extra dozen Valks to the game, and we’ve got the sparks working overtime on STRIKE packs for them.” The Roughriders cheered, and Boots mock-curtesyed their enthusiasm. Stepping to the lectern she slotted a thumbdrive, turning on a screen full of orbital vectors and flight paths. “And now it’s time to introduce you all to something we like to call Operation SCORPION,” she said with a predatory grin.

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…What defenses they could muster together in place and ready to fire, the Fen defenders settled in for what probably felt like a years-long siege, but was really only a day or two. Finally, on December 7th 3020 the pirates jumped into the system: a full regiment of battlemechs, fighters and infantry split up between ten jumpships. Loosely banded under the command of Johann Frankenstein, a pirate commander and slaver from the Rim Worlds, the army jumped in mostly in one large mass at the Sol-Tellus pirate point. They all jumped in there because they knew where it was for one, for another it was the largest point in-system that could accommodate the full fleet and still make it to Tellus in a reasonably short period of time.

There were two outliers. One ship jumped worked out and jumped into the Sol-Venus L1 pirate point, and another jumped two hours early into the Tellus-Luna pirate point. We’ll get back to those in a minute but first we have to deal with the eight jumpships standing a million kilometers off Tellus.

So there we are, the jumpships have arrived, everybody’s holding their breath and Haruhi Suzumiya, the poor woman in the hot seat, takes one last gamble. Hoping that maybe, just maybe the reality of the situation might dissuade the pirates from attacking, she broadcasts to the invaders. The message is part plea and part threat, promising open arms if they’re there to trade, and dire vengeance if they aren’t. The response was what Suzumiya had feared: almost every ship – pirates, after all – broadcast back their own reply, ranging from derisive scorn to graphic descriptions of how they were going to ‘open relations.’

With one exception: the ship that jumped in early was the _Pridwen_ , jumpship of the Grey Knights Company. They weren’t pirates, rather pirate hunters working undercover to wipe out as many of Vorax’s band as they could. They jumped in to warn the people of Fenspace of the incoming pirates, only to find out that the Fen had plenty of warning already…

~***~

**Jumpship _Pridwen_** **, Fenspace System**  
 **7 December 3020, H-minus 2 hours**

The Grey Knights were just barely out of hyperspace when all hell broke loose. On board the jumpship alarms wailed as _Pridwen_ was coated in radars.

“Positive contact!” the sensor operator cried, “multiple targets all around us, converging on our location.”

“Deploy sails and radiators,” Alex Harris said calmly. “Do not undock dropships nor activate the guns.”

“Ser Alex-”

“No. Guns. We are _not_ these people’s enemy. And get us a communications link, I want to speak with their military.”

“Already have one, sir,” the comms officer piped up. “Patching through now.”

“ _This is Interplanetary Defense Force ‘Great Justice’ to incoming jumpship. State your business or be destroyed, you have ninety seconds to comply.”_

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Okay, more on the ball than we had anticipated,” he said. “Encouraging. Status on those contacts?”

“I can’t make sense of my scopes but there are a lot of contacts, more every second and all moving far too quickly for my comfort. They mean business, Ser Alex.”

“Good, good,” Alex nodded to the communications officer. “Put this through: This is the jumpship _Pridwen_ of the Grey Knights Mercenary Company, Captain Alexander Harris commanding.” He paused. “We surrender. Completely and unconditionally.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…What followed next is known in Fen legend as the Long March. For the next six hours, almost every single vehicle capable of carrying a gun, bomb or missile in the Tellus system rained down on the beleaguered dropships, chipping away at their armor. This first engagement between Inner Sphere weapons and the Fen was not at all balanced in the Fen’s favor. Handwavium-based ships had speed and maneuverability advantages, but the guns were weak and armor almost nonexistent by Spheroid standards. The pirate gunners had trouble getting the nimble Fen ships in their sights but when they did the results were pretty nasty. Larger ships could get away with losing a wing or getting holes punched in them, but the bulk of Fen forces were small fighters like the classic Zig, most of which exploded like TIE fighters whenever their paths intersected a beam, shell or missile.

The highest-profile casualty on the Fen side was the _SC Ciara_. _Ciara_ was a veteran of the Boskone War, a former Irish Navy destroyer that was one of the very few actual warships in the early days of Fenspace. Having retired literally less than a year before the invasion, _Ciara_ was pulled out of the Port Phobos museum yard and refitted to provide fire support…”

~***~

_**SC Ciara** _ **, 600,000 km from Tellus**

Captain Raymond Garret scanned his bridge. The only face still there from the old days was Anne Devlin, the grey catgirl at the gunnery console. “We’ve got to knock that last bastard out. Suggestions?”

Anne grinned fangily. “Full burst to the engines should stop it,” she said. “But they’re covered by their wingman.”

Garret checked his display. “You’re right, we’d get pounded apart getting into position, they’re covering each other too well.” By maneuvering _Ciara_ into position to take out Leopard number one’s engines, they’d leave their own engines wide open for Leopard number two’s guns.

“Let’s ram them,” the pilot suggested tentatively. “The hull’s tough enough. She can take it.”

~***~

“Target inbound!” The sensorman yelled over the din of battle. “Constant bearing, decreasing range!” The captain looked to his viewscreen and saw the grey-hulled boat that the Fenspacers had gotten to fly against all reason slowly turn to point her bow right at _Axeman_.

“Emergency retrofire,” the captain ordered. “Let them overshoot and we’ll burn them as they pass.” He felt the direction of thrust change as Axeman’s engines burned hard against their previous vector.”

“Target is matching course,” the sensorman reported, panic starting to seep into his voice. “They’re turning right at us!”

The captain went white as snow, a cold thrill of adrenaline surging through his body. “ _Fire everything!”_

The boat grew larger and larger in his screens. Fireballs blossomed and scorched the hull but did nothing to arrest its momentum. The captain had a moment to think wildly that maybe this was all a bluff and that the mad fool didn’t actually mean to ram him when seven hundred tons of destroyer met seven _teen_ hundred tons of dropship at a relative velocity of two hundred kilometers per hour. The kinetic energy was concentrated along a long slash where _Ciara_ ’s bow slammed into _Axeman_ ’s side, ripping open the super-tough alloy and crushing the forward compartment. Anything not nailed down aboard either vessel was thrown about violently as destroyer and dropship were brought to a graceless halt.

Aboard _Ciara_ , Raymond waited for the world to stop spinning before checking his suit seals. Everything seemed well, main power had gone but the emergency lights flooded the bridge with an orange glow. Most of the controls were dead, though a few flickered fitfully on the last dregs of battery power. Beneath his feet a hollow shudder shook the whole ship as something gave way in the frame.

“All stop,” the pilot whispered. “That… that might’ve been a little too fast.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…Facing a foe they couldn’t hurt fast enough and could hurt them all too well, the Fen fell back on being clever to win the day. And it worked quite well: the dropship _Falling Hammer_ was overwhelmed by an army of repair droids that cut their way through a weak spot in the dropship’s armor, swarmed the engineering spaces and literally dismantled _Falling Hammer_ f rom the inside-out. A salvage ship managed to one-shot a pirate cruiser with an incredibly lucky shot from an improvised cannon. The greatest victory of the Long March was the elimination of the pirate command dropship, _Nightmare Moon_. _Nightmare Moon_ was an Overlord class, one of the kings of the Spheroid battlefield, and it seemed unstoppable.

Enter into the picture Junior Lieutenant Tomo Takino. Tomo was a veteran of the Boskone War who deliberately stayed low rank in order to maintain her position as an interceptor pilot. Her squadron had been held back from the Crazy Eddie Squadron because their preferred spacecraft didn’t have the fuel range to be useful on long patrol, and as a result they had front-line tickets to the invasion. When it looked like _Nightmare Moon_ was about to slip the Fen nets, Tomo took the initiative and, after a record-setting burn around Tellus, slammed her interceptor into the Overlord’s aft port quarter at five hundred kilometers a second. The energy released was equivalent to a small nuclear bomb, shattering the dropship. Tomo herself ejected bare milliseconds before impact and was later recovered to receive a small pile of awards and the bill for wrecking her fighter…

(…) Meanwhile, remember that one jumpship that appeared at the Sol-Venus pirate point? That ship, the _Barn_ , belonged to a group of mid-ranked mercs best known for daring raids. They also figured that ransacking a couple domed habitats would be more lucrative than fighting off a dozen different pirate bands for a small slice of the larger pie. Appearing where they were, they had an almost unimpeded approach to the Crystal Cities. Almost unimpeded not being the same as actually unimpeded: the legendary vigilantes-slash-mercenaries the Knight Sabers were lying in wait for any pirates dumb enough to take a shot at Venus. When the _Barn_ ’s two jumpships undocked, the Sabers sneaked up, boarded and took the dropper _Iron Chariot_. The second dropper, the _Jenny_ , evaded capture and made it all the way to Venus. Unfortunately for them most of their sensors were disabled evading capture, and flying blind they descended past crush depth and imploded. Venus may be for lovers, but it’s not a great place for tourists…

(…) Seven hundred kilometers above Tellus, the Fen suddenly broke off their attack and moved to higher altitude. For the pirates, who’d been getting hammered like this for six hours, an assault pretty much none of them had ever experienced before, this must’ve felt like a victory. They’d survived all this weird crap getting thrown at them, and now they were about to hit atmosphere and do the job they came to do. Right?

Wrong. Really, really wrong. Once the pirates were below seven hundred kilometers they ceased to be the Fen’s problem and became a threat to the nations of Tellus. Minutes after the last Fen craft departed the formation the Tellurian nuclear shield erupted, launching dozens of tactical-yield warheads at the incoming warships. Fifteen dropships became ten in seconds as the slower and unluckier ships ran into the missiles head on and were shredded or simply vaporized…”

~***~

**Dropship** _**Distant Home** _ **, 1250 kilometers above Fenspace**

It had been a long few hours for the crew of _Distant Home_. The Union dropship, along with the rest of the fleet, had been under attack almost since undocking. The little ASFs that buzzed the ship like flies couldn’t dish out much in the way of damage, but the cumulative effect was slowly building up. Already the number one turret was effectively out of commission, the autocannon jammed at a useless angle. The armor continued to hold and the engines continued to burn, and _Distant Home_ was a veteran of many a hot descent. 

On the bridge, the crew were starting to drift a little. Six hours of constant ASF assault wasn’t unprecedented, but it had been a very long time since the Buron Cav had had to deal with it. Fatigue was catching up with them; unessential bridge crew let automatics handle the load and tried to catch up on sleep, or spelled more vital people at their jobs. The helmsman stifled a yawn and looked at his plot screen. “Forty minutes to atmosphere, Cap’n,” he reported.

Captain Maria Staedele nodded, her eyes fixed on the combat tank. She didn’t like this job, she didn’t like the other “mercenary companies” they were forced to deal with and she really didn’t like the fact that the closer the fleet got to the planet the fewer fighters attacked. If the Fenspacers were trying to keep the fleet away, why stop attacking as they got close? It didn’t make sense, and Maria’s caution was up. She stared at the plot, watching the pirates who believed that victory was near surged ahead, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

The tense silence of the bridge broke with a chime from the communications station. The radioman blinked and turned to answer. “Tightbeam transmission coming from… Captain, it’s the _Pridwen_!” he said, startled. Maria raised an eyebrow, the _Pridwen_ had gone through almost two hours before the other jumpships and hadn’t been heard from since. A trick, maybe?

“Put it through,” she said. The main holotank fuzzed and reformed with the face of Captain Alex Harris obscuring the tactical plot. “ _This is_ Pridwen _to_ Distant Home _, come on Andreas, pick up the line,”_ Harris said.

Maria raised her other eyebrow. Harris normally kept a more even strain, at least when he wasn’t out drinking with her husband. “We’re receiving you, Captain. What’s the situation?”

“ _Maria? Oh, thank the Lady!”_ Harris looked frazzled. “ _You need to change trajectory right now, aim for an apoapsis of three thousand kilometers and then signal a surrender. Whatever you do,_ don’t drop below seven hundred kilometers.”

“Captain Harris,” Maria replied, a sinking sensation forming in her gut at the other mercenary’s urgent tone. “We can’t just surrender, we took a contract and even if we tried to escape where could we go?”

“ _Maria… Captain Staedele,”_ Harris said, “ _please listen. These people… they’re more advanced than we expected, you must’ve seen it on the way in from the jump point.”_ And that was true enough, even if the little ASFs couldn’t hit worth a damn they certainly weren’t the product of the gang of neobarbs Frankenstein had said were here. “ _I can arrange safe passage for you and your people, but you_ must _do as I-”_ The transmission jumped for a second, a sudden sizzle of static clouding the holotank. Maria switched out of the comlink back to the tactical plot. 

Along the front edge of the fleet, huge flashes of light and radiation started blooming, each flash causing the tank to dissolve for a moment into noise. Maria watched with horror as one dropship icon vanished, then another. A third icon vanished and Maria slapped her hand down on the annuciator. “ _All hands, stand by for emergency burn!”_ she roared, dropping down into her seat and holding on for dear life. “Helm, max thrust, put us on a trajectory away from the planet!”

The intercom chimed once, Andreas calling from his mech cockpit to find out what the _hell_ was going on when _Distant Home_ thundered into action. Her four mighty fusion engines opened up a full three gees of emergency thrust at a tangent to their current line of flight, slowing the Union’s descent and pulling that line ever so slowly from the surface, to an atmosphere-grazing line, then further and further away until it crossed the deadly seven hundred kilometer mark. Clear of impending disaster, the engines cut off entirely, leaving the ship in freefall.

Maria floated out of her seat, shaking from fatigue, excitement and terror. Of all the things she expected from this mission, that was the last thing on her mind. The intercom chimed again, and she thumbed it open.

“ _Maria, what’s going on up there?”_ Andreas Staedele demanded. “ _Why did we go to emergency thrust?”_

“The natives are angry, love,” Maria said quietly. “We saw multiple nuclear detonations on the vanguard.”

There was a long moment of silence. “ _Good God,”_ Andreas said finally. “ _That’s…”_

“I know. Harris said he can get us safe passage, I’m going to hold him to that. Let you know in a minute.”

“ _All right. Do your job, Maria.”_

“I will. Love you.” Maria closed the intercom and said in a more businesslike tone, “Communications, get me Captain Harris and the Fenspace commanders. I want to surrender this ship before we all die.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…The pirates’ original plan, in so far as it could be said they had one, was to land more or less as a group near the planetary capital, capture the local government and then with them safely bundled away as hostages force the locals to do … well, whatever they wanted. This plan went out the window once _Nightmare Moon_ was out of the picture: without Colonel Frankenstein and his Overlord’s ability to coordinate communications any level of central control pretty much went out the window. Then the pirates hit the nukes and it was pretty much every man for himself at that point. The surviving dropships scattered and landed at a series of different points all across the globe…

~***~

**Qingdao, People’s Republic of China**

The aliens were on their way, and the People’s Republic moved to meet them. That they made it through both the Fen assault and the nuclear curtain was… not surprising, exactly, but something of a disappointment. Still, if pirates from beyond the stars meant to land in China, the People’s Liberation Army (specifically the 54th Army Group) would show them the folly of thinking they could do that and live another day.

That was two hours ago. Now, the North Sea Fleet rained missiles down on the invader’s dropships and tanks and artillery faced off against battlemechs in the city proper. Lieutenant Lian Ch'ien had seen a lot of death in the last two hours. His own comrades, some even friends, who died as their Z-9 and Z-10 helicopters exploded in the face of enemy fire. Civilians trapped in their homes while all hell crashed down around them.

Ch'ien edged his Z-10 a little closer to his chosen cover, a largish apartment block. He noted but didn’t let himself dwell on the large craters punched into the building. He wasn’t sure if that was the pirates’ doing or stray artillery, but in the end it wasn’t important. Putting the scum in giant robots down was the goal; he could mourn civilian casualties later.

The Z-10’s nose popped out around the edge of the building a little, letting Ch'ien get a look at his current target. The mecha was a tall, skinny thing in olive drab; if he remembered the hastily-drawn up recognition cards correctly the design was called a “Centurion.” A medium-sized design armed with lasers, a nasty artillery piece in the arm and torso-mounted missile launchers. The Centurion seemed to have found a lull in the fighting, walking down the main avenue towards the city center like a man out for a weekend constitutional.

Ch'ien considered his options. Most of the 54th’s assets were tied up keeping heavier mecha busy elsewhere. He didn’t have anything in the way of support, or at least no support that could get to him quickly. Tricky, but not impossible.

Let it never be said that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force didn’t have a plan for _every_ contingency, up to and including assault by extraterrestrial mecha. Originally developed to fight a Fen incursion (the planners to be fair expected a somewhat more conventional assault but as the Fen were Fen, creating tactics to deal with the more outrageous handwavium technology seemed prudent) the doctrine was simple enough:

  1. _Everything_ has a weak spot, no matter how bullshit it might seem.

  2. When in doubt, _go for the knees_.




Ch'ien popped around an office tower and let off a salvo. The heavy anti-tank missiles arced out and slammed into the back of the Centurion’s right knee joint. The mech stumbled and for a split second Ch'ien thought that he’d scored a mission-kill on the pirate. Unfortunately the Centurion staggered and righted itself and Ch'ien ducked back around another building just ahead of the mech firing a rear-mounted laser. The beam narrowly missed his chopper and scored a glowing line through his cover’s facade.

“Fucking hell,” Lian Ch'ien swore. “Swallow 4 to HQ, first salvo on the attacker ineffective, repeat first salvo ineffective. I thought I might’ve downed it first, but the armor is too thick for standard anti-tank fire.”

“ _Understood, Swallow 4,”_ the company commander replied. “ _What’s your ammunition status?”_

“I can do two more anti-tank salvoes, one if I let everything go at once, then it’s anti-air and cannon, which is just going to make it angry.”

“ _Copy that. Recommend you launch one more salvo at the cockpit. If that fails, try to lure it east towards the bay._ Dalian _is hunting for targets.”_

Ch'ien smiled coldly. The mecha might be able to handle two anti-tank missiles from his Z-10, but three or four anti-ship missiles wouldn’t be shrugged off so easily. “Understood,” he said. “Beginning attack run now.” Ch'ien dropped into a low turn, keeping the taller buildings between him and the mech as much as he could, skids scraping across the roofs of abandoned trucks as he turned back towards the Centurion.

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…The battle of Qingdao, as well as the battle of Bielefeld where German artillery decimated a pirate band who’d decided to loot a frozen food factory rather than attack something more industrial, showed that Tellurian arms could defeat Spheroid armor. But the cost was higher than they had expected: the defenders of Qingdao were badly chewed up by the pirate forces, and advanced German tanks, some of the most powerful artillery on the planet at the time, died easily to battlemech fire.

The greatest battle of the invasion happened in the city of Detroit, Michigan. Once one of Tellus’s great manufacturing powerhouses, the city had seen far better days. The night of the invasion, three pirate dropships landed on the outskirts of the city ready to plunder it down to the ground. The city had only bare minutes of warning, in the pre-dawn hours of a Sunday night in the middle of winter, and by the time the pirates had landed at the airports and secured their LZ there was no time for an orderly evacuation.

In the midst of all this panic, the American Marines Second Tank Battalion scrambled out of home base and landed on the outskirts of Detroit less than an hour after landing. At about the same time, stealth bombers that had tracked the dropships during entry dropped tons of high explosives on the stationary transports, crippling them. Now stranded and with native armor closing in, the pirates moved deeper into Detroit, hoping the defenders wouldn’t be willing to destroy the city just to get at them.

What followed was a seven-hour scramble between the pirates and the Marines as they darted in and out of the city center. Most of the worst fighting happened in the downtown area as the marines and the pirates dueled, tank versus mech. To no one’s surprise the tanks did not come out the better for the deal, though the battle of Forest Park did cause a surprising loyalty flip. Reassessing the situation after the duel, lance commander Natalie Fischer decided that, all things considered, the winds of fortune were _not_ blowing in her direction. She ordered her mechs to stand down and, a well-trained mercenary, she offered her remaining forces as backup to the badly-mauled defenders. While the American military wouldn’t hire her for love nor money, the Detroit city government was far more flexible. The mayor, his city invaded by pirates, tanks, Marines and giant robots, deputized Fischer’s lance as part of the Detroit City SWAT force and put them to work rooting out pirate tanks moving down the west side of the city.

The Battle of Detroit ended roughly around mid-day local time, with much of the center of the city in ruins but the pirates thoroughly routed…”

~***~

**Detroit, Michigan, USA**

Burgess Hale climbed out of his Hunchback and took a look around the city. It didn’t appear that anything was on fire - or at least nothing was still on fire - but large sections of the downtown had smoking craters in the street and the surrounding buildings. “Well,” he said to himself, “this was a real clusterfuck.”

Dismounting from the Hunchback (“Real mechwarriors only need a rope ladder and gumption,” as his uncle was fond of saying,) Burgess hit the street in front of a small pack of military and police officers. A tallish man in police blue stepped away from the pack to greet him. “Major Hale,” the cop said, offering a hand. “I’m Captain Zubrigg. I’d say it’s a pleasure but.”

“Yeah,” Burgess said, taking the offered hand and backhanded compliment in stride. “I know what you mean. So I heard we had some-“ A thundering rumble like a launching dropship filled the air. Burgess turned and saw a skyscraper behind his mech quiver, then half of it came crashing down in a huge cloud of dust and debris. He just stared, aghast, while Zubrigg looked pained.

Burgess cleared his throat. “That… wasn’t _our_ fault, was it?” he asked weakly. Zubrigg shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “Well, probably not. Most of the damage happened before you got here. I’m just glad the downtown was evacuated.”

“Yeah,” Burgess said absently. In the far corners of his mind he wondered if this was what it was like for the neobarbs after one of his raids back during his pirate career. “So, anyway, I was saying, we had some turncoats during the fight I heard?”

“Mm? Oh, yes, them. That’s why I asked for you. The entire lance - that’s the right term? Okay - the lance surrendered and survived, so we’ve got them under guard. You’re the nearest thing we have to an expert on this, so we’d like you to handle the interrogation.”

“Well, that’s awfully flattering. What’s their unit?”

“They’re claiming to be Fischer’s Fusiliers. Ever heard of them?”

Burgess’s brow furrowed in thought. “Doesn’t ring any bells, but we might not have operated in the same areas.”

“Anything you can tell us straight out?” Zubrigg pressed.

“If they surrendered when cornered they’re more merc than pirate,” Burgess said confidently. “Mercs know when to quit; pirates are more likely to get hung so they don’t surrender easy. So long as you don’t start beating ‘em or get out the thumbscrews they’ll hold to that surrender.” He paused. “You know if there’s an interest in keeping these guys on retainer or throwing them in jail?”

“Above my pay grade,” Zubrigg replied instantly. “Though the fact that we don’t have them in lockup right now…” he trailed off and let Burgess come to his own conclusions.

“Right so,” Burgess said. “Might as well let me at ‘em then.”

There were three of them, all sitting around a camp table under a tent, manacled and glowering at nothing in particular. Burgess nodded to the soldiers keeping watch outside, smoothed his hair a little and pushed into the tent with a cheesy grin. “Good afternoon folks,” he smarmed. “I’ll be your interrogator today.” The little knot of mechwarriors jumped at the intrusion and then turned their sullen stares on him.

“This is _bullshit!_ ” One mechwarrior, a tall blonde woman protested, ignoring a quelling look from a shorter redhead whom Burgess pegged as Fischer. “We surrendered! Hell, we helped save this shithole from those other assholes! Why are we sitting here in cuffs?”

“Why are you sitting here in cuffs?” Burgess said mock-thoughtfully. “Well, it probably has to do with the fact that you landed here planning on robbing this place to the ground and changed sides only when it looked like you weren’t gonna get away with it.” The blonde wilted a little at that, Fischer looked like she wanted to facepalm and the last mechwarrior, a huge bald dude, looked grimly amused. “These people don’t trust you,” he continued. “But hey, look at it like this: You’re sitting here in cuffs instead of being stuffed into a VTOL and taken on a tour of this country’s finest prisons. Or just stood up against a wall and shot. And if you answer my questions you might even get rid of the cuffs,” he finished with a hint of a smile.

“So we answer your questions and that’s it?” Fischer spoke up for the first time, her voice low and tinged with a depressed anger. “We get our mechs back and get the hell off this planet?”

“You can get your mechs back,” Burgess not-quite lied. “As for getting out of here, well… that’s for later.”

Fischer eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not a local, are you,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Oh, that’s right, forgot to introduce myself. Major Burgess Hale of the Castaways, at your service.”

“Hale?” Fischer said, blinking. “Wait a minute, they said you were _dead!_ ”

Burgess rolled his eyes. “Of course they said that. You wouldn’t have signed up if they said ‘oh and by the way our company commander was abandoned in-system with all his kit because the dropship skipper was a cowardly fuckstick.’”

“Yeah, okay,” Fischer said grudgingly. “You have a point. Natalie Fischer, commander of the Fusiliers.”

“Charmed.”

“I’m sure.” A pause. “So what do you want to know?”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…The most remarkable battle of the invasion, though, was the Battle of the Serengeti. The last surviving pirate dropships made a panicked descent into the plains of East Africa after narrowly avoiding obliteration by the orbital defenses. Landing near the border of Kenya and Tanzania, the pirates took a minute to collect themselves and figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, a division of United Nations peacekeepers armed with T-90 hovertanks and backed up by the Fen ekranoplan _Lun_ rushed out to meet them.

What followed next was a week-long running battle between the pirates and the UN-Fen forces. The pirates would hop from campsite to campsite, only to be attacked by high-speed tanks and over-the-horizon missiles. The effect on the pirates was to distract them from the lightly-guarded and very pillagable cites of Nairobi, Mombasa and Dar-Es-Salaam. With all the excitement happening out on the plains, the pirates assumed that the only reason an armored division would attack them out in the BFE was if there was something hidden out there. Convinced there was some sort of secret base hiding under all the grass and wildebeests, the pirates never attempted to attack any African city.

Still, the UN couldn’t do this forever: the T-90 proved no more effective at taking fire from battlemechs than the more conventional tracked tanks in America, Europe and China. Eventually the peacekeepers were going to run out of tanks. Appealing to the Convention for help, the Fen sent in the Starfleet Marines, specifically the MARS team, an ex-Soviet special forces group that was scary effective during the Boskone War. What happened next is still officially classified, but MARS managed to secure the dropships and capture all the pirates with minimal damage.

The last thing to do was take care of the invading jumpships…”

~***~

**Jumpship** _**Titanic** _ **, Sol-Tellus L1 Point**

“So what do we do if we don’t take the target?”

“Suffocate when our air runs out, I guess.”

Those words had seemed a bit funnier in the briefing, Kali mused. The whole idea of getting dropped off near the fringes of what they thought the Invader’s possible sensor range would be and using rocket belts to close in had seemed a lot better before they were in mid-space. The theory was sound; there was no chance that the sensors would be tuned to see a bunch of human-sized targets with minimal metal content. The idea of being boarded sitting away from anything was just too crazy.

“And yet here we are,” she muttered, too quietly for the throat mic to pick up. A typical sort of thing for Phobos, MARS’s 1st Company.

“Contact.” Even though they were talking through point to point laser comms in the middle of space, Claire’s voice still came through softly. “About 250 kilometers off where inertial nav predicted it should be.” A data package transmitted over the laser comms highlighted the jumpship against the background of space on the heads up display inside Kali’s helmet.

“Got it. Not bad considering. Okay. I’m at 12 minutes until I’m out of air, everyone else similar?” A chorus of assents. A flicker of facial and eye movement caused the HUD to zoom in on the jumpship, then highlight a hatch before zooming back out. “Right, form up here.”

Minutes passed, figures in a mix of seifuku, web harnesses and space adapted ballistic armor seeming to congeal out of space as they got close enough to the jumpship for it to provide background. Kali ran a quick headcount, then nodded to herself. “Okkane-chan, the door please?” One of the seifuku’d figures flashed a quick acknowledging hand signal. Kali turned to Claire. “Okay, Claire, you take half the team to secure engineering spaces. I’ll take the other half towards the bridge. Should be simple.” The sailor suited figures nodded. “Zed, since you don’t need to fuckin’ _breathe_ –” a round of chuckles at this, but barely, they were all almost out of air, “–you head towards the bridge and prepare to distract them or provide fire support.”

“… aaaand, about time,” Kali remarked with a bit of a smirk to herself as the hatch opened from the interior and Okkane motioned them in. “What took so long?” She was given a middle finger, followed by a series of hand gestures expressing in a matter of seconds that she had to disable the sensors reporting the airlock status. Kali chuckled and waved it off, unslinging the silenced pistol-calibre submachinegun most of them were packing and checking the chamber as the rest of the team piled in.

The outer hatch closed and air filled the airlock as the rest of the MARS squad checked their weapons, their seifukus slowly shifting color from space black to the dark reds and purples they used in boarding actions. “All right. You’ve all got zipcuffs – try to take prisoners, but taking the jumper intact is the priority. Hard and fast.” The last of the air flowing and the inner hatches opened, and the ladies of MARS kicked off down the corridor.

~***~

“There’s someone outside!” It had been hours since the dropships had detached, it was supposed to be a nice quiet time with the jump sail unfurled, recharging the batteries and just waiting. But instead Captain Nick Cravat had a headache in the person of a junior officer.

“Wilson, shut up, I don’t want to hear this again.”

“I’m telling you, there’s a woman right outside the window.”

“We’re in the middle of _space_ , there’s no woman out there.”

“I swear to God captain, please just look.”

“All right! All right, if it will get you to shut u…” Captain Cravat trailed off. Sitting outside, in what looked like a reddish school uniform, actually _was_ a woman, dreadlocks floating away from her head like a starburst. Scars crossed her face, which was almost split with a grin. As he watched, she waved, then pointed behind him. Almost fearing what he’d see, he turned around.

“Hands in sight please,” said a mild voice from one of a group of similarly attired women who had appeared in his bridge. _His_ damn _bridge!_ Or, given the weapons trained on him and Wilson, maybe not his anymore.

“Just what the hell,” he muttered, resigned.

“Oh, that’s Zed, you get used to her.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…As for the _Rogue Elephant_ and the _Drakon_ , the two ships that started this whole mess, the _Drakon_ survived the long march from the pirate point but took damage when it crossed the nuclear curtain. Careening across North America barely under control, _Drakon_ attempted an emergency landing on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. It ended up in the lake, engines wrecked and mech bays flooded, and Captain Lucius Minimoto surrendered to city police. The good captain would spend five years in the Utah state penitentiary for reckless endangerment, and upon release faded into obscurity, a footnote in the history of Fenspace’s first contact with the galaxy.

The unprotected _Rogue Elephant_ , like the rest of the pirate jumpships, was seized by the Fen shortly after the dropships were on the ground or otherwise neutralized. Matthew Benson, the man who sold Fenspace’s coordinates to Vorax in hopes of becoming rich off of booty, was arrested and sentenced to life at the Azkaban Prison. He would spend the next thirty years there, wondering where his life had gone so wrong. Matthew Benson died at the prison hospital on December 1, 3052.

Next week on the History of the Periphery, having had a taste for the worst the Inner Sphere had to offer and now hopping mad about it, the people of Tellus and Fenspace take stock. Though they successfully fended off the invasion, the man responsible is still out there and knows where they are. Something needs to be done, and for the first time in decades the Fen and the Mundanes are going to have to work together to do it.”


	7. Cleaning Up

### Fenspace, 3020 - 3021

> “ _That was the easy part. The hard part is deciding what happens next.”_ ~ Serenity II (3021)

~***~

_Excerpt from program “The Chewy Gristle Commentary Hour Featuring Momo von Satan and the Cock” episode 9 December 3020:_

INT. TV STUDIO: MOMO VON SATAN, resplendent in loligoth dress and magenta hair, sits behind the CGCH news desk. To her right is THE COCK, top hat perched at a jaunty angle and monocle at the ready.

MOMO  
Tonight on the Chewy Gristle  
Commentary Hour: The Convention  
gets its ass handed to it and  
just barely manages to not get  
Earth conquered by Long John  
Silver cosplayers-  


THE COCK  
(shouting)  
SUZUMIYA NO READY FOR FLANKING  
ATTACK ON EARTH! WHYYYYYYY?  


MOMO  
An important point, Cock, now  
stop fucking up the intro. The  
questions of the hour: What the  
_fuck_ was anybody doing listening  
to Rhodes and Suzumiya in the  
first fucking place? How badly  
will six dozen nukes going off  
in low Earth orbit fuck us? Will  
we be less head-up-asshole  
stupid when the next gang of  
fuckheads gets here? And the  
biggest question of all: what  
the fuck do we do now? It’s a  
big galaxy out there and the  
pigs have taken an interest.  


(beat)

I’m Momo von Satan, this is the  
Cock, and we’re about to stick a  
probe right up the burning anus  
of Convention politics.  


FADE TO OPENING TITLES

~***~

**Dropship** _**Distant Home,** _ **3050 kilometers above Tellus**  
**8 December, 3020**

The ship sent to fetch them looked... wrong. It was a massive flying wing with an odd protrusion at the front. Andreas judged the ship to be roughly the size of a _Leopard_ , but the silhouette was less aerodyne and more aquatic, like a creature he’d once seen on a documentary holo. It swung around _Distant Home_ in a lazy arc with no visible means of propulsion, twisted around and sidled up to the dropper’s main docking port. There was a faint clanging sound as the two ships connected, then the commander of the Buron Cav and his wife floated off the bridge to meet the aliens.

Andreas popped open the outer hatch and found himself looking at a reasonably ordinary airlock chamber: metallic walls, suit lockers and cubbyholes along the walls and a thick pressure door on the opposite side from where he floated. The only anomaly to his eyes was a large sign on the far wall:

\- Lunar Fox -  
Warning: Artificial Gravity Zone  
↑ This Side Up ↑

“Artificial gravity?” Maria said. “This ship isn’t big enough to have a grav deck.”

“It’s a giant aerospace fighter that laughs in the face of Newton.” Andreas said. “I think we need to redefine what’s impossible.” He swung himself across the threshold and felt his weight suddenly return as he crossed the boundary separating the _Distant Home_ from the Fenspacer ship. “They aren’t joking about it, either,” he said. “Watch that step.” Maria swung across and let go a fraction too soon, drifting out of freefall and falling into her husband’s back with a surprised grunt.

“About a quarter-gee, I think,” she said. Andreas nodded. The outer door closed with a soft swoosh, and more scrolling warning holograms appeared around the chamber.

“ _Warning: Gravity normalizing to one standard gee,”_ a pleasantly electronic voice said. “ _Normalizing in three... two... one... mark.”_ The pair felt their weight smoothly return to normal. Maria shook her head.

“Like standing on the deck when we’re accelerating,” she said, a faint note of wonder creeping into her voice, “but we haven’t undocked from _Distant Home_ yet.” The inner door opened with the same swooshing sound, and Andreas stepped forward when he was brought to an abrupt halt by a voice from within:

“Bloody _hell_ I hate that sound! Why’d you buy doors from the Trekkies anyway?”

“For the same reason I hired you to help build the engines,” a deeper voice answered “Besides, you wanted death rays when a single gauss rifle worked just fine, so stop bitching about the sound effects.”

Andreas raised an eyebrow. “Trekkies?” he said. The word sounded vaguely familiar.

Maria raised an eyebrow of her own. “ _Death_ rays?” she said.

Together: “ _Gauss rifle?_ ” They traded looks, then gave another look to the open door. Finally, Andreas cleared his throat. “Permission to come aboard?” he asked.

“Granted,” the man’s voice echoed. On the other side of the hatch a woman dressed in scraps of neobarb evening wear held together by leather belts, buckles and brassy geegaws leaned casually against a wall of the companionway. “Welcome aboard the _Lunar Fox_. I’m Captain Dakota.” A male voice cracked over a speaker. “This is Vanessa Darkblade, acting Chief Engineer and self proclaimed Queen Longears.”

“Ignoring Captain Hairball for a moment.” Van gave them a dramatic bow. “My proper titles are..” A screech echoed from a hidden earpiece. “Oi!”

“Just get ‘em settled on the couch already, I’m about to undock.”

Van grumbled then lead the two into a rather well appointed living area through a short passageway. Waving them over towards a rather over stuffed couch as she headed to the kitchenette. “Want anything to drink?”

“Just water.” Andreas replied while taking one of his wife’s hands in his as a faint shudder through the floor signaled their start into an uncertain future.

~***~

In the seven months of their acquaintance, Maria and Andreas Staedele had picked up a read on Captain Harris. The man was given over to a grandiloquent formality, unfailingly polite in all his interactions with an inner reserve that made the man seem stilted at times. A strange affectation for a pirate, really, but there were odder ones out there. As the Staedeles entered the great domed city they found Harris waiting for them, and he had changed to some degree. The formality was still there but they saw a new wildness in his eyes. Andreas and Maria exchanged looks: clearly something had happened to Harris, but what?

“Andreas, Maria!” Harris greeted them with a wide smile. “So good to see you among the living!”

“Captain Harris,” Andreas said cautiously. 

“Relax, we’re among friends here,” Harris said.

“Nuclear-armed friends,” Maria shot back. Watching those dropships die under atomic fire… it wasn’t something she wanted to experience firsthand ever again.

Harris shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “Besides, having met our former compatriots I daresay they deserved every bit of it.”

“But we didn’t?” Andreas asked suspiciously.

Harris met his eyes. “No, you didn’t.” he said levelly. “Time for a confession. Colonel, Captain, I’m just as much a pirate as you two. Less, even. My men and I are pirate hunters.”

Andreas’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you work for?” he demanded. “Davion? Kurita? The Outworlders?”

“That is a question just fraught with meaning,” Harris replied, eyes twinkling. “We sometimes take contracts with various planets, but most of our work is pro bono. There’s quite a few pirates out there - well, fewer since we started,” he said with a vicious smirk. “If the Lords aren’t able or don’t care then somebody has to take out the trash.”

“And now you’re here.”

“And now we’re here. This wonderful, confusing, _amazing_ world!” Harris laughed. “I’m so looking forward to working with these people in the future, and I suspect they’ll be interested in offering you a job too.”

Andreas and Maria exchanged looks. “I’m not sure changing bosses from a Periphery scumlord to a complete unknown is out best option,” he said carefully. “Their money might not be good elsewhere, for one.”

“Possible,” Harris replied. “But I think that might not be an issue. We’re standing on something a lot bigger than you know, Andreas.”

“You know something?” Maria asked.

Harris grinned like a kid locked in a candy store. “I know lots of things,” he said. “Most importantly I know where we are.”

“You do?” she said, brows raised.

“I do indeed.” Harris pointed at the thin crescent of the planet hanging above them. “You see that planet up there? That great big beautiful blue world? That my dear Staedeles, is _Terra_.”

Maria Staedele said nothing, giving the Knights commander a pitying look as the man had obviously lost his mind. Andreas Staedele’s jaw worked for a few seconds until, finally, he could say something coherent about this revelation.

“...Bullshit,” he said. “We’re in the Deep Periphery. That can’t be Terra, we’re hundreds of light years away and in the wrong direction!”

Harris spread his arms. “I know! I know! It sounds crazy, but there it is. I’ve seen Terra from orbit before, I know what it looks like and that _is_ the motherworld!”

“But that’s impossible!” Andreas protested. “If that’s Terra, what’s it doing _here_?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, Andreas,” Harris said happily. “Isn’t it great?”

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _A People’s History of the Gernsback Expanse”_ _by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3124):_

“In the aftermath of the Great Pirate Invasion, the watchword was _fury_. Despite the defense in space and on the surface, the pirates had managed to inflict a great deal of damage before they were finally defeated. Two major cities had been partially destroyed, along with significant damage elsewhere and the havoc wreaked by the last-ditch nuclear defense grid. Roughly 50,000 people were killed or injured, mostly civilians unable to get out of the pirates’ way fast enough, and an estimated 850 billion C-Bills worth of damage caused to the cities of Qingdao, Detroit and Biefeld. 

Pundits, including an informal group of former _BattleTech_ players, assured the world that for all the tragedy and horror of the Pirate Invasion, things could have been so much worse. The pirates had intended to loot Earth all the way down to the bedrock, and it was likely that sooner or later another force would be assembled and sent towards Earth. Clearly, it was time for action…

(…) Titanicon opened a December 18, 3020. Called under the emergency clause, the Convention was a combination of extended memorial, after-action report and brainstorming session on what to do next. It was also the first Convention where representatives from the terrestrial nations attended not just as observers or tourists, but active participants. Representatives from the eight pre-handwavium space powers attended the SMOFcon executive sessions and the general sessions, offering suggestions and outlining where and what  the United Nations would support going forward…

(…) The first order of business was the assignment of blame and the necessary punishment, if only to get it out of the way before more pressing matters. In a move that shocked most observers, the Supreme Commander of Great Justice took her share of fault for the Crazy Eddie Squadron without complaint. In a speech during the opening session she dropped a surprising bombshell:

> ‘ _The decision to put our fleet at Procyon was mine. Had I not decided that we could outthink our enemies, the pirate fleet that attacked Earth would have been stopped cold at the Lagrange point. I accept full responsibility for my actions and the near-disaster it brought down on top of us. It is with this in mind that I hereby submit my resignation as Ultra-Commander of the Interplanetary Defence Force Great Justice to SMOFcon and the Convention. Thank you.’_  
> 

The move was unprecedented, and set off a surprising firestorm of controversy within the Fen community. A plurality agreed that Suzumiya’s forcing of the Crazy Eddie Squadron had put Earth in a more vulnerable position than it would have been had the fleet been in Sol. However, a vocal minority (backed mostly by Jovian elements, especially the _Serenity Valley Daily Rebel_ ) noted that, while the Crazy Eddie Squadron in hindsight was not a wise move, Suzumiya herself had orchestrated and coordinated the entire orbital assault phase of the invasion. ‘To allow such a weapon to rust on the shelf instead of being used,’ said one _Daily Rebel_ editorial, ‘would be as criminal an act as letting the pirates go free.’ Suzumiya for herself ignored the controversy; in her mind the fault was clear and it would be better if the world just let it go for now. Suzumiya would eventually return to prominence within the Convention, but her career no longer led through the military; her tenure as leader of Great Justice ended at Titanicon.

The squadron’s creator and chief proponent didn’t feel like retiring after it’s failure, however. Benjamin Rhodes defended Crazy Eddie in open session, the closed SMOFcon meetings as well as in the media. ‘The plan was tactically sound and represented the best chance to defend Earth without putting it in danger,’ he said to the _Daily Illuminator_. And to be entirely fair the squadron _was_ tactically sound on paper, but the solidity of a plan on paper doesn’t matter if it fails in execution. Rhodes also used the bravery of individual Roughriders during the orbital assault as a rhetorical weapon, playing on the Convention’s emotions in order to keep himself and his faction in the game.

The Convention, which had been moved by Suzumiya’s prompt acceptance of blame and voluntary resignation, felt less moved by Rhodes’s continued self-justifications and doubling down. The Roughriders as a faction found themselves on the outside of Convention politics looking in through the early 3020s. Rhodes himself took a significant personal prestige hit: he was no longer invited to private Convention parties and relisted in the SMOFcon executive session. Once one of the major players in the Fen paramilitary scene, the Roughriders effectively faded into the background until the Last Succession War, when the force would play a key role in the creation of Rooseveltian Rasalhague…”

~***~

**Christopher’s Landing, Titan**  
**18 December 3020**

Haruhi Suzumiya closed the door behind her and sighed deeply. “Well,” she said. “That sucked.”

“Are you alright, Haruhi-san?” Koizumi asked, concern etched in his face. Haruhi gave him a tired half-smile.

“Honestly? Not really,” she replied. “But I think I’ll be alright eventually. But you know what’s funny? I think I’m actually relieved that it’s over.”

“Seriously,” Kyon said.

“Yeah, seriously,” she replied. “We had a pretty good run, but maybe it’s time to hang up the spurs.”

Yuki cocked her head as if listening to something only she could hear. “The probability of you remaining out of the command decision loop is incredibly low, Suzumiya-san,” she said. “Your experience as leader of Great Justice-“

“Is what nearly screwed up our response to the ambush,” Haruhi interrupted. “I thought we could sucker them like a bunch of half-bright punks and we nearly _lost_ out there. My call, my fault, my responsibility.”

“Nevertheless,” Yuki said doggedly, “the point remains. While you are a political liability now, the Convention will require your knowledge and skills in the future. In time, they will call you back.”

“Maybe so,” Haruhi said thoughtfully, then sighed. “But that’s for the future. Right now I think I’m going to try and be a housewife for a year.”

Nobody moved for a long moment, then Kyon blinked. “Haruhi Suzumiya, the devil-queen of Fenspace, the woman who gave Noah Scott a concussion when he tried to remove her from his station, wants to be a _housewife_? Have we fallen into another strange alternate universe?”

Haruhi glared at her husband. “Oh ha ha, just because I want to try something different for the first time in ten years…”

“If I might interrupt your foreplay,” Koizumi interrupted hastily, “if Haruhi-san’s going to go domestic, where does that leave the SOS-dan?”

“Well we’ll still _meet_ ,” Haruhi said. “We might not hold the reins of power anymore but we still throw some pretty good parties. In fact we ought to get started planning one for the end of Titanicon-”

“Actually,” Kyon said, looking a little nervous, “I was thinking of looking for a new job.” Haruhi whirled and stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown three heads and started rap-battling himself.

“Kyon, you traitor!” she cried. “You’d abandon us in our hour of need! Where’s the nearest airlock?!”

“Whoa, calm down Haru-chan!” Kyon replied, throwing his hands up in a protective gesture. “It’s not what you think!”

“Then what is it?” she growled, advancing on him with injury on her mind.

“It’s like Yuki said, sooner or later you’ll be back in the saddle, so whatever the SMOFs come up with we need some eyes and ears on the inside to keep us as informed as possible. So once they announce the new plan I was going to sign up with whatever they come up with.” He paused as Haruhi processed this information, then let loose his final bombshell. “And I’m going to do it under my old name.”

Haruhi’s eyes narrowed as she considered this, then went wide as the implications hit home. “That’s… that’s…” she sputtered.

Koizumi looked thoughtful, albeit slightly confused. “So instead of Kyon Suzumiya, you’d be Kyosuke Suzumiya?” he said doubtfully. “I’m not sure what that gains you, Kyon-kun.”

Kyon shook his head. “How soon they forget,” he said. “You’re right that Kyosuke Suzumiya doesn’t gain me much, but Kyosuke _Kurita_ is a name to conjure with in the Inner Sphere. Even if they don’t want Haruhi, I can’t see the SMOFs turning down an advantage like that.”

“THAT’S BRILLIANT!” Haruhi came out of her loop with a yell and launched herself across the room, grabbing Kyon in a tackle and throwing him back into the shabby couch. “They’ll give you a front-row seat for anything involving the Sphere just on name basis, and it gives us an immediate in with the Combine once we initiate contact!” she proclaimed. “They’ll _have_ to check out a mystery Kurita! We’ll have huge access! You magnificent, devious bastard, I am _so_ turned on right now!”

“(Ew),” Yuki muttered.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Vigilo Confido: The History of XCOM_ ” _by Sven Kutna (Moonstone Books, Luna, 3070):_

“The aftermath of the Great Pirate Invasion made it abundantly clear to everyone with eyes that the old ad hoc method of system defense was not going to cut it in a post-Event world. The forces involved with throwing back the pirates had acquitted themselves with honor, but in the cold light of hindsight the commanders knew that no matter how well the men and women on the ground fought they needed something substantial backing them up. Defending Tellus and the colony worlds would require more than just throwing a task force together and hoping for the best. The defense of the Expanse needed organization and structure if it was going to succeed.

The Treaty for the General Defense of Earth and the Greater Expanse - forever known as the Titan Accord - was built in haste, ratified in haste and all parties involved had cause to regret signing it at one point or another in the years to come. Despite this, none of the signatories - the originals at Titanicon nor the ones to come in later years - ever seriously suggested breaking the alliance forged by it. As one Federation politician remarked famously, ‘That puts us one up on the Star League.’ The Accord was at heart a military alliance. The signatories provided funds for a joint Fen / Tellurian army that would ‘secure the defenses of Earth, the greater Solar System and all colonies’ against aggressive moves from elsewhere. This army by design was not allowed to intervene in terrestrial or Fen affairs, those would remain the realm of existing national and metanational armies. The force that emerged from the concentration of Fen and UN military thought was XCOM, the Exosolar Combat Organization…

(…) The rationale behind the acronym, why XCOM as opposed to ECO, is still a bit of a mystery. The name comes from a popular video game of the previous generation, which is likely the reason the acronym quickly became popular among XCOM line soldiers. It doesn’t quite explain why it was adopted almost immediately (along with the pentagonal shield emblem and the infamous motto ‘Viglio Confido’) by the organization’s top levels, however. The current historical consensus is that, as XCOM’s early commanders were largely Fen, the Fen tendency towards obscure in-jokes and almost perverse nostalgia collided with some force…

(…) Naming the first commanding officer of what would be the largest military in Tellurian history was a surprisingly difficult task. Despite having control of what amounted to a huge number of assets up to and including nuclear weapons as well as the theoretical prestige of the position, very few people within the Accord structure actually wanted the command. For most Tellurian staff officers, XCOM was seen as a lateral move at best and one that took them out of consideration for higher rank within their own militaries. For the Fen it was a question of experience: for the past ten years there had been only one ‘supreme commander of all things military’ in Fenspace, Haruhi Suzumiya. But in the aftermath of the invasion Suzumiya had resigned, leaving a wealth of reasonably experienced junior officers but no real standout in terms of high-level command.

In the end, the first Commander of XCOM was a relative newcomer to the military. Cynthia Luckwold was the ex-Minister of Magic, leader of a Fen faction that almost went over the edge of extinction during the Boskone War starting with the assassination of her predecessor. Luckwold’s tenure as Minister had seen war and devastation hit her faction to a degree unseen by any other Fen group, and she managed to hold the faction together by sheer force of will. Under Luckwold the Wizards rebuilt from near-extinction to an A-level faction; by the time she stepped down in 3018 the Wizarding World was one of the more impressive sights in Fenspace.

It was this tenacity and ability to direct oft-scattered Fen that impressed the nascent XCOM Council the most. While no great strategist, Luckwold could be backed up with a staff of some of the brightest military minds available. But her ability to wrangle egos and her political skills would prove invaluable for the tasks ahead. Just after midnight on December 20, 3020, the XCOM Council unanimously voted to appoint her as Commander. In a moment of self-congratulation the Council called Luckwold up to let her know the good news, which wasn’t the most diplomatic thing they could have done…”

_Sven Kutna is a novelist and former journalist who covered the Clan War for the_ Daily Illuminator _. This is his first work of non-fiction._

~***~

**Christopher’s Landing, Titan**  
**20 December 3020, in the middle of the goddamn night**

“Hello, Ms. Luckwold.”

Cynthia Luckwold blinked. The hell was this?

“In response to the recent extraterrestrial incursion, this council of nations has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM Project.”

Cynthia’s heart sank. They wouldn’t dare...

“You have been chosen to lead this initiative, to oversee our first and last line of defense.”

God damn it, of _course_ they would. Her partner always said that no good deed went unpunished and now look what happened.

“Your efforts will have considerable influence on the future of this system. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed.”

Oh, she definitely would.

“Good luck.... Commander.” The screen went dead and the newly-appointed commander of XCOM flopped back into her bed, wondering exactly what went wrong with her life.

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Vigilo Confido: The History of XCOM_ ” _by Sven Kutna (Moonstone Books, Luna, 3070):_

(...) The major issue facing XCOM was the lack of armored land vehicles, specifically battlemechs. Before the invasion, large mecha were considered less a valuable part of the modern battlescape and more a niche product from mad engineers. While some Fen mecha were produced, few were ever intended to be more than prestige projects and almost none went into mass production. Even the most famous pre-Event mecha, the Greenwood VF-series land-air mechs, were valued for their nimbleness as aerospace craft, not their mecha qualities. The post-invasion military landscape showed that the battlemech was not just valuable, it was likely to be necessary to some degree or another if XCOM was going to defend against further Spheroid incursions.

The first XCOM mecha unit was, oddly enough, a modern twist on a much older organization. The _Légion étrangère, 2e régiment étranger spatial_ was a scheme set up by the French government as part of their duty to the XCOM Council. A new regimental-level unit under the aegis of the famous French Foreign Legion, the Regiment Spatial gave XCOM the leeway necessary to recruit battlemech units (some recruited under highly unorthodox circumstances) with only minimal security issues. Renegade mercenaries like the Buron Cavalry and Fischer’s Fusiliers were hired by the Legion on open-ended contracts, and in the years after the conclusion of Vorax’s War became the first Fen-exclusive mercenary units in the Expanse.

Meanwhile, mechs began trickling into XCOM hands. Most of the Spheroid-quality battlemechs were battlefield salvage of one type or another: some intact mechs were recovered from captured or wrecked dropships, while partially intact mechs were patched up or stripped for parts and put to use elsewhere. The People’s Liberation Army produced a functional lance of frankenmechs (including the now-famous Crimson Typhoon) out of the remains of the Qingdao raid. These mechs were eagerly accepted into the ranks and formed the core of the 1st XCOM Mechwarrior Division.

Fen mecha remained something of an odder hodgepodge. The invasion turned out to be a renaissance for mecha designers in general and there was a great surge in robot designs from nearly all quarters in the period starting immediately afterwards. Most designs were submitted to XCOM, who kept an eye on outside development. While everybody marketed their designs as ‘Atlas-killers’ or ‘Sphere-beaters’ the truth of the matter was the Fen mechs were still lacking. Spheroid armor and weapons technology remained multiple decades ahead of the Fen state of the art, and as a result most designs were rejected for frontline service. 

This changed at the 3021 regular Convention, when XCOM quartermasters found the MS-01 Zaku at the exhibition hall. The Zaku was the first modern Fen battlemech: while still under-armored by Spheroid standards the design was rugged, easy enough to upgrade and equipped with an interchangeable weapons suite that gave the Zaku a great degree of versatility. Initially purchased to provide second-line capability, the Zaku would eventually become the signature Fen mech throughout known space…

(…) Trained mechwarriors were a significant commodity in the pre-Antallos period. The Foreign Legion provided a viable training cadre, but it turned out there were more mechs than pilots. There was some talk of recruiting captured pirates (Fischer’s Fusiliers being the most well-known example with their unusual induction into the Legion) but for the most part the newly-dispossessed mechwarriors, when not imprisoned under a variety of charges, quietly retired to one Fen suburb or another, the invasion being the last straw for them…

(…) While the battlemech / mechwarrior situation was worked out XCOM kept busy with more extensive system defenses. The invasion had shown that space defenses could be viable against attacking dropships, and as Fenspace had a surplus of defensive spacecraft the obvious solution was to picket Sol and the exosolar colonies with forces. XCOM’s initial space interception forces were ‘loaners,’ ships assigned to duty with XCOM by their respective factional navies. The Republic Navy made up the bulk of the available ships, followed closely by the Federation Starfleet and a contingent of corporate and paramilitary navies. Defensive positions were established at the Sol zenith and nadir points, as well as rapid-reaction forces closer to the major worlds; these defensive points would eventually become the Halifax and Subic trade stations. The success of Project MARATHON in early 3021, along with additional breakthroughs in EKF and stutterwarp research led to the creation of XCOM’s first jump-capable fleet, the flagship of which was a highly unlikely gift from the American government…”

~***~

**XCOM Temporary Headquarters, Pavonis Geofront, Mars**  
**25 January 3021**

One month into the new job, and Cynthia Luckwold didn’t feel like killing anyone. So far, so good. The NERV Foundation had offered XCOM office space within their geofront, an offer which Cynthia had accepted gratefully since the alternative was staging a multi-national military organization out of her kitchen in Hogsmeade. Of course, this came at a price: Cynthia had yet to spend a day without Alex Xanatos or one of his minions poking about trying to ‘improve the overall efficiency of our working relationship’ or some other equally dubious piece of management speak. She’d agreed to let NERV send a contingent along when the time came to set out into the Inner Sphere to track down Vorax and chastise him – if they could get their new toy fixed in time – and when they persisted, stationed guards armed with fire hoses in front of her office. Let them try and bullshit their way through _that_ , she reasoned.

Aside from the aggravation coming from XCOM’s new roomies, the outlook was... not very good. Cynthia’s hand-picked circle of advisors had run the numbers – were still running the numbers – and every prediction didn’t bode well for Earth or Fenspace. A handful of half-developed planets simply couldn’t stand up against the full attentions of any Inner Sphere power player. Even with handwavium and the technological wizard’s chest of the Whole Fenspace Catalog, the system was outmatched in forces potential and actual.

And then there were the political considerations. On day thirty-five after founding XCOM was a rough composite of dozens of forces, some of which were established units, some which had just started a month before and a handful which still only existed on paper, none of which had any real experience working with others. The council nations weren’t much help, as they were gearing up to spend more time jockeying for prestige slots than providing materiel or – Merlin forbid – actual funding.

So, an impossible mission with a shoestring budget and a ridiculous cast. Not something she hadn’t done before, but as she walked down from her office to the food court Cynthia Luckwold frankly wished that she was _bad_ at her job.

“Commander!” Luckwold stopped and turned, scouting for a fire extinguisher in case of Xanatos only to relax fractionally when it turned out to be someone else.

“Admiral Dodge,” she said in as neutral a tone as she could muster. “What brings you to Pavonis?”

“I thought I might give you a status update on our preparations.”

Luckwold raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have aides to do that?” she asked. Dodge looked a little sheepish.

“Well, usually yes,” he replied. “But I have some sensitive information to relay, and honestly I wanted to get a little void under my feet. It’s been too long since the _Stingray_.”

Navy people. Luckwold carefully didn’t roll her eyes. “What have you got, Admiral?”

“Two things. First, we’ve begun construction on our two contributions to the invasion. We’re expecting the _Detroit_ and _Dearborn_ to be ready for trials by the end of June. If those go well, they’ll be ready to join the counterstrike by mid-August.”

“That soon!” Luckwold said, impressed.

“We have some _very motivated_ people working on them, Commander,” Dodge told her seriously. “Congress is behind us 100%, which means we’ve got unlimited funding to ensure at least one dropship’s flying the Stars and Stripes when XCOM hits Port Krin.”

Luckwold nodded. “The more ships the better,” she said. “We’ve got the captured ships but that might not be enough, too many were wrecked in the fight. What else have you got for me?”

“This would be for system defense.” Dodge held out a small flash drive. “The Joint Chiefs instructed me to offer this, as our contribution to the standing defense force, Commander.” Luckwold took the offered drive and stuck it in her tablet, glancing at the contents.

She froze when she saw exactly what was being offered. “You _bastards_ ,” she breathed. “Where was this when we needed it?”

Dodge for his part looked uncomfortable. “Undergoing sea trials,” he said. “You have to understand Commander, SCV-79 is the largest-scale project TSAB’s ever done. We don’t have a full crew complement for her. We don’t have enough fighters yet to make her effective in combat... and to be frank we’re not entirely sure she’ll actually _work_ in space. We’re rewriting the book on carrier operations just to get her to sea, for God’s sake.”

Luckwold give the admiral a shrewd look. “So you want XCOM to break in your new toy,” she said. “And what do we get in return?”

“Besides a fully operational aircraft carrier? Commander, right now the American people want blood; what happened in Detroit was the worst attack on American soil since, hell, since the civil war. But memories fade, and the Joint Chiefs are looking towards the long-term. If you bring SCV-79 into XCOM you will have their support, which will go a very long way regardless of who’s in the White House.”

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Apotheosis of the Mall Ninja: A Very Unauthorized History of Anthony Edwards and the Patriot Movement_ ” _by Jon Helscher (Equestria Royal Academy Press, 3059):_

“The well of science fiction fandom from which the Fen sprung is often characterized as welcoming, tolerant and peaceful in most endeavors. This is the image the Fen carefully cultivate for themselves, and maybe two-thirds to four-fifths of the time it’s true enough for government work. But the fandoms have their darker aspects, ones the average Fen would prefer to remain hidden or be wished away.

Science fiction fandom for most of its history was _not_ the inclusive world it’s often portrayed as. A combination of obsessive behavior – fandom at heart is an obsessive thing – a massive persecution complex and an oft-unwarranted superiority complex led the greater world of fandom to be a little inclusive at the expense of being extremely exclusive. If a person could make it through the barriers, they would be received with open arms, but if if someone who was no less of a fan couldn’t recite the right shibboleths they would be ostracized. Worse, everybody in the ‘in’ group would be defended beyond all reason no matter how unpleasant or downright evil those people might be. Furthermore, the nature of the fan superiority complex meant that all sorts of crackpots could find a willing audience for utopian schemes of a morally questionable nature, just so long as they could appeal to fandom’s ‘obvious’ intellectual superiority.

From the beginnings of fandom up until the establishment of the Convention as a nation, people who might otherwise have been shunned for racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and so on would be sheltered by other fans who might not have agreed but refused to let ‘normals’ or ‘mundanes’ bully One Of Their Own. This herd mentality ruled Fenspace well into the early handwavium age, only breaking after the Boskone War when Fen found themselves actually having to _govern_ instead of being a bunch of niche groups with common cause. The mentality never quite vanished though, and the people espousing it didn’t either. For the most part they faded back into the background, infesting small corners of the internet and popping up at inopportune times. It’s from here that the arrogant, intolerant dark side of fandom stayed alive until it could be unleashed on the galaxy in the form of the Patriots…

(…) We don’t know a lot about the life of the Patriots’ founder, more’s the pity. Anthony Edwards was a man given to claims, few of which could be successfully verified. The basic facts of the matter are: American by birth, Anthony Edwards hailed from somewhere in the midwestern United States, most likely the plains states. Nebraska State has a record of him attending in the early 2000s, though beyond that the record thins. Nobody available for interview remembered much of Edwards’s college days: the man appears to have been something of a cypher, pursuing an unremarkable scholastic career.

Edwards claimed to have served in the Middle-Eastern Wars as a special operative on ‘deep cover assignments’ shortly after leaving college. This particular claim started shortly after Edwards arrived in Fenspace, and is frequently cited by Patriot supporters. There is no evidence that Edwards served with the American military – or any military at all for that matter – during the timeframe of the Middle-Eastern Wars. We know that Edwards supported the wars, one of the few times he surfaces during his college career is as a source for pro-war quotes for the campus newsletter. Beyond this, all claims by Edwards regarding his military experience can be considered spurious.

Arriving in Fenspace in 2009 TD with the second wave of settlers, Edwards found work in construction in Port Luna, working mostly on the city’s B ring. He also started a political blog, Qualified Statements. _Qualified Statements_ is an interesting piece of early Fen history, because it’s one of the first expressly _political_ blogs in Fenspace; earlier blogs tended to be more about the experience of living and working in space, while Edwards was more interested in exploring the political landscape developing around where Fen settled. Posts from _Qualified Statements_ generally centered on and were aimed towards an anarcho-capitalist audience. This ideology was popular with smaller Fen groups, especially Belt miners, and started Edwards on his road to becoming a major player in Belt politics. At this time he also flirted with the concept of neoreactionary thought.

Neoreactionary thought is a philosophy with roots in millennial conservatism and the shifting tides of society and economics brought about by both the information revolution of the 1990s and the handwavium revolution. The reactionary concept goes more or less like this:

> ‘ _Social and political changes of the last hundred years have brought about increases in crime, strife, government and household debt as well as decreases in civic participation and overall happiness. The only solution is to abandon the current paradigm (i.e. democracy) and return to the stability of the more traditional form of government (i.e. absolutist monarchy).’_  
> 

For most people in the Gernsback Expanse, Fen or otherwise, this is easily dismissed twaddle, the ranting of people about to be swept into the dustbin of history. Edwards found it intriguing, and frequently flirted with neoreactionary concepts in his blog. In a post discussing the formation of the Crystal Millennium, Edwards wrote ‘That Curtis demands the throne pass to an _elected_ Queen smacks of the demotist fallacy. Wouldn’t it be better if the throne was inherited, to improve the stability of the realm?’

Neoreaction never really caught on with Fen, despite the documented Fen fascination with monarchy in all forms. Despite this, Edwards continued weaving neoreactionary concepts into his blog posts. Much of what would become the foundation of the Patriot movement can be seen in Edwards’s neoreactionary thought…

(…) By the 2020s Anthony Edwards had made himself into a reasonably wealthy and influential person, a Secret Master of Fandom and acknowledged ‘Voice of the Independent Belter.’ His political views were on the outer edge of Convention acceptability, but so long as he restricted his opinions to his blog nobody seemed to worry overmuch. Edwards’ mining startup, the NEO Trading Company, did good business with American electronics firms and while slightly tainted by an extortion-racket scandal in 2022 wasn’t in any serious financial risk and Edwards himself seemed completely clean. This is Anthony Edwards at the moment of first contact: a man with some unusual views and possibly some under-the-table corruption, but overall a respected pillar of the community.

First contact changed all this. The enormity of the Event and the situation Fenspace found itself thrust into unlatched something in Edwards’ brain. His earlier flirtation with neo-reactionism became more and more evident in his blog posting. In public statements Edwards would often decry the ‘demotist fallacy’ of the Convention and urge Fen leaders – particularly Warsie Chancellor Seung Yu-jin – to take a more absolutist stance on exosolar affairs. Other blog posts took on a greater and greater apocalyptic tone:

> _In the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man. And this is a war, make no mistake. Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is a liar or a fool. The progressivists of Earth and Fenspace don’t understand this, or they don’t care. They want to negotiate with savages who would cut their throats. We cannot talk our way out of our planned demise. Either we let ourselves be led into extinction by the masters of fandom like lambs to the slaughter, or we will fight back.”_

_Jon Helscher was one of the first Fen to make a permanent home in Fenspace, and is also the first official journalist-historian of Fenspace. His previous books were on the founding of the Convention, an oral history of the Boskone War and a fictionalized account of Vorax’s War._

~***~

> “ _The true test of moral character is how you deal with adversity. When you start saying things like ‘the ends justify the means,’ ‘necessary evil,’ and ‘hard men must do hard things,’ your character will take you to some very dark places.”_ ~ Victoria Steiner (3070)

**Titanicon Special Session, Christopher’s Landing, Titan**  
**20 December 3020**

“My fellow SMOFs,” Anthony Edwards proclaimed grandly. “Today we must realize that any attempt to deal with the lords of the Inner Sphere will result in failure and death. We may be able to cow backwater pirates and tribals, but the chaos of the Sphere is another matter entirely. They are not _like_ us. They do not cherish what we cherish. To treat with them as rational actors will only result in our destruction, and then _their_ destruction as they misuse our gifts for their own childish purposes. We have a solemn duty, my friends. We must impose _order_ upon the Inner Sphere! We must attack!”

The assembly remained silent. Edwards noted this. Good. They were willing to accept the next part. Plunging on into his peroration he continued. “We must take the weapons we’ve captured off of the pirates and build our own. We must take our prisoners and extract as much knowledge as we can from them. Then, once we’ve accomplished this, we must build an army to go into the Inner Sphere and _destroy_ the Scavenger Lords once and for all! We must be willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our way of life, without looking back.”

A rumble from the mid benches as a towering, bear-like man stood. “The chair recognizes Ambassador Keith, New Lunar Republic,” the chair-AI said. Edwards suppressed a scowl.

“I have a question for Master Edwards,” the Lion of Equestria drawled in his most majestic, chicken-fried tones. “Does the _distinguished_ representative from the Belt understand that Fenspace is, right now, at best a handful of worlds, many barely populated, versus well over two thousand?”

“I’m well aware, Mr. Keith,” Edwards replied stiffly.

“Oh, good, good. So, Master Edwards, tell me: how do we preserve our way of life by destroying the Successor States?”

“We have advance knowledge of their tactics, we have examples of their technology and we can build better besides. Right now we have the initiative; if we destabilize the jokes they call nations, they’ll be too busy fighting each other to stop us from rolling in and taking their worlds.”

Keith raised a grey eyebrow. “And if the people of the Inner Sphere refuse our _generous_ offer of liberation? What then, Master Edwards?”

“We must be prepared to do anything to prevent the death of our civilization. You don't do that by asking nicely, Mr. Keith,” Edwards sneered. “If we have to reduce a population-” The SMOFs buzzed angrily, and he had to raise his voice to be heard “-then that's what we do! All life is struggle, and kill or be killed is the law of the universe. You think that you can talk nicely to these... _people_ and expect them to pat you on the head and leave us alone? _Fool!_ We must assert our dominance over these savages or be plunged into eternal night! The only language they understand is _force_ , the only emotion they know is _fear_! We must show them force and teach them the true meaning of fear!”

“ _Monster!_ ” called a SMOF from the back benches.

“ _Coward!_ ” Edwards fired back. “You're unwilling to do what is necessary to bring the light of knowledge and civilization to these barbarians. We have tamed the solar system in ways the Inner Sphere cannot comprehend – _we are their superiors_. We stand atop the heights while they grub in the mud. We can let them tear us down to their level, or we can rise to the challenge and assume our place in the natural order of things. What I propose-”

“What you propose is against everything the United Nations and the Fenspace Convention stand for!” Keith roared. “By Celestia Aeterna boy, I would sooner see _Liao jackboots in Port Luna_ than lose our souls to become the _new_ cruel lords of the Inner Sphere!”

Something deep in Anthony Edwards let go, and he abandoned restraint. “Fucking _brony!_ ” he yelled. “Of course you’d want to knuckle under, just like the rest of your kind! You’ve already planned it out! You and all the rest of you! You’re going to sell out to the Inner Sphere! You’re just waiting for the right price for your treason! But let me tell you now there are some true patriots willing to fight you! We will not let you drown civilization under a tide of alien wogs! We will take this to the streets and we will crush you under heel like the snakes you are!”

~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _Apotheosis of the Mall Ninja: A Very Unauthorized History of Anthony Edwards and the Patriot Movement_ ” _by Jon Helscher (Equestria Royal Academy Press, 3059):_

“Some things can be said couched in metaphor or hidden in obfuscatory verbiage, but when they’re said in plain language out loud in a semi-public place all of a sudden people stop returning your phone calls. So it was with Anthony Edwards after Titanicon; being caught on multiple recordings ranting about the conquest of the Inner Sphere and throwing old racial slurs around, the Voice of the Independent Belt had his vocal cords cut. Edwards was quietly disinvited from working groups and networking parties, and by December 24th left Titan for his holdings on Toutatis a defeated man.

Unfortunately for the galaxy at large, it didn’t end there. Edwards’ madness struck a chord with that dark, paranoid and xenophobic edge long hidden away by fandom and also hiding in the souls of non-Fen. For people wrapped up in cloaks of fear largely of their own making, what Tony Edwards was selling sounded pretty good. And for a class of powerful people who saw themselves as ruthless exploiters of this group the mad dream of replacing the Successor Lords as the absolute rulers of the galaxy was so appealing that they acted.

Shortly after Titanicon, a small group of investors approached Edwards in his redoubt. This group was led by American financier David Kobayashi, a man who had like Edwards escaped charges in the United Belt Alliance scandal and represented monied interests on Tellus who saw the future in galactic conquest. The exact details of the meeting are unknown, but Kobayashi expressed ‘great satisfaction’ with the results when reporting to his superiors. After this meeting Edwards announced his retirement from NEO Trading, something most observers believed was a move to distance his major source of income from his remarks at Titanicon. In fact Edwards moved to Tellus to begin his great work, an army that would save Tellus from democratic barbarism and creeping socialist tyranny…”


	8. Dark Science

### Inner Sphere – Fenspace, 3020-22

_Excerpt from “ The Sixth World” by Sun-Tzu Liao (Capellan Union University Press, 3069):_

“Economics has a gravity of its own, and like the mass of a black hole pulling everything within reach towards it, the weight of the Inner Sphere’s connected economies slowly pull Periphery traffic inward. Handwaved materials, mostly small consumer electronics of a type rarely produced on most worlds since the Civil War, started appearing in free ports around the coreward edge of the Inner Sphere.

Naturally, much of this ‘mystery lostech’ found itself in the hands of the State governments. The House Lords first regarded this material as a novelty, interesting in a few ways but in the end immaterial to their purposes. Then a few enterprising engineers discovered that they could extract the motivating substance from samples of wavetech. With actual handwavium to work with, the Successor States set to work seeing if they could replicate the results…”

~***~

**Luthien**

“The substance we’ve extracted comes in solid and liquid forms. Both are a translucent gray in color, and the liquid form has a similar viscosity to engine lubricant. Most of our samples are of the liquid form, which also seems to have the most utility in application.”

Takeshi Kurita frowned. “How so?”

“The solid material acts as a power source, or perhaps some form of advanced computer. If we bring power leads or data cables near a fragment it will absorb the leads into its surface. Beyond that it doesn’t seem to do much of anything.” The scientist pointed didactically “However, the liquid material is inert when kept in storage but once applied to an object the results are intriguing, to say the least.”

“Intriguing,” Kurita repeated. “A word that implies much but says very little. Stop beating around the bush, doctor, and explain.”

“Ah, yes. We’ve applied samples to test objects and the material has transformed them into technology that is very different from what it started as.” The holotank behind the scientist played footage of a weapons testing ground, with a mech-sized laser sitting on the test pad. “Here we have a basic Allied Technologies small laser treated with the substance and left to cure for 48 hours before testing. This is what happened when we fired it for the first time.”

In the tank indistinct voices counted down the seconds before firing. The count reached zero and bolts of pink-white energy like a malfunctioning PPC crackled up and down the barrel. The laser let loose with a titanic roar and a blast of ravening white fire that filled the camera’s field of view until it dissolved in static and the tinny voices of the test crew shouting in surprise and pain.

Takeshi Kurita, Coordinator of the Draconis Combine and one of the most frightening men in the galaxy, rocked back with his jaw hanging at the display. “What in hell’s name was that?” he demanded.

“That, Coordinator-dono, was a small laser producing a beam and backscatter effect equivalent to a warship-grade PPC, or a small nuclear weapon. As you can see it ruined the camera – all the cameras on the pad, in fact – and caused flash injuries to the ground team.”

“To think such a thing is possible,” Kurita mused. “Was there anything left of the target?”

The scientist… brightened wasn’t the right word, perhaps became more focused. “This is the intriguing part. Once the testers recovered their wits they checked the target plate. No damage. At all. We might as well have been shining a flashlight at the plate for all the injury the laser did.”

“That’s… unexpected.”

“Indeed, Coordinator-dono. When we reexamined the laser in the lab, we discovered that the substance had converted the laser from a weapon into a very sophisticated hologram projector.”

~***~

**New Avalon**

Hanse Davion arched a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re telling me it turns weapons into toys?” he said. “So much for it being of use militarily then.”

The researcher shook his head. “It may not be useful for weapons, Highness,” he replied. “But weapons aren’t everything when it comes to a military after all. Further tests show that the material may have some practical use.”

“Such as?”

“Defensive applications for one thing. A simple quarter-inch steel plate has the same damage resistance as low-grade commercial armor if coated in the substance. A heat sink with the material might be able to double or triple total capacity depending on how we use it. The solid form acts as a passive power source with incredible output for very little mass – imagine replacing a fusion engine in a standard mech with one. And that’s just applications based on refitting old material. New designs taking the substance into account could be paradigm-shaking, on the level of fusion power or myomer.”

“But it only works if we have the resources to do it with,” Davion pointed out.

~***~

**Sian**

“And therein lies the problem, Celestial Wisdom,” the technician said glumly. “We need more of this material, much more if it will have any effect on our industrial output. We have enough left for testing, perhaps to rebuild one mech. If we’re careful with our resources we might be able to scrape up enough for a single lance before we run out. After that we will have to make more, and that will take time.”

“Make?” Maximilian Liao said, slightly surprised. “I wasn’t aware we could manufacture this miracle material.”

“Growing is the… more accurate world, Celestial Wisdom,” the technician said. “The research team believes that the samples will self-replicate if given appropriate material to act as a culture. It seems to be part biological and part mechanical, very strange.” She paused. “For something that seems as sentient as a block of wood, it’s a very particular substance. So far we’ve found that printouts of Korvin’s philosophy work, as does copies of _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_. We don’t know why those work in particular, though.”

~***~

**Atreus**

Janos Marik waved his hand in dismissal. “Hmph, puzzling but immaterial. What else can you tell me about the substance?”

The engineer shrugged. “Right now we’re still working out the basics, sir,” he said. “Also we’ve had, ah, security problems.”

“Security problems?”

The engineer sweated a little. “In the past few weeks we’ve had incidents where samples of the material have been found outside the facility.”

Marik rounded on the poor engineer. “They’ve _what?_ ” he thundered, and the engineer quailed.

“We don’t know!” the poor man insisted. “Facility staff and dependents have all been interrogated, the holos have been checked by our security and by SAFE. As far as we can tell nobody is taking the material out of the labs, it’s, it’s just _appearing_ outside the perimeter. Nobody’s tried to take it offworld, locals are just finding it lying around in fields, or along the side of the road. We’ve recovered all the samples and none have been more than a few kilometers from the facility. We just don’t know how in blazes its getting out.”

~***~

**Tharkad**

Katrina Steiner frowned. “You’ll have more security on the facility by the time you get back,” she promised. “I don’t like the idea that this stuff can spread without noticing.”

The scientist nodded. “We don’t like the notion ourselves, your highness,” he said. “Some of the more fanciful people on the team have suggested that the material is trying to escape on its own.”

“Escape?” Steiner wasn’t happy to hear that. “That implies _will_ , doctor. Or at least sentience. You said it wasn’t.”

“Just idle gossip, your highness,” the scientist replied. “I suspect our problem comes from a subliminal effect the material has on humans, like how certain parasites can cause animals to behave differently. With tighter security and a stricter quarantine regimen we should see a decrease in these issues.”

“I’m not sure that zombie-parasites are any more comforting doctor,” Steiner said dryly. “I just wish we knew more about where this stuff was coming from.”

~***~

**Terra**

“And that is the problem, Primus,” Demi-Precentor Alexi Watts said. “We have no idea as to the origin of this handwavium substance. None of our research has shown a positive match in the archives. There’s no anomalous materials research in the Terran Alliance, the Hegemony or the Star League that corresponds with handwavium. As for locating the place we have… even less I’m afraid. We think it’s coreward of the Draconis Combine in the trans-Coal Sack region, based on where our samples came from. Beyond that, nothing. No planet name, no coordinates.”

“Mm,” Julian Tiepolo mm’d. “And now this miracle-in-a-can is trickling in all along the edges of the Inner Sphere. Why now, I wonder?”

“Only God and Blake know, Primus.”

“Indeed. Well, I think Precentor Butler has a new goal for her ships. The trans-Coal Sack, you say? I think it’s time the Order did some more aggressive scouting in that neighborhood…”

~***~

_Excerpt from “ Myths, Legends and Conspiracies of the Gernsback Expanse” by Henry Jones III (University of Tharkad Press, 3050):_

“A lot of the more fascinating legends to come out of the Periphery involve the concept of _dark science_. In the popular imagination dark science is neither lostech nor the evolution of Star League technology that we see in (as an example) the Clans, it’s the intersection of science and the forbidden arts, an amalgamation of science, alchemy and pacts with dark gods which allows ordinary people to attain scientific wonders beyond human comprehension. Dark science, according to Periphery lore, is the reason the Fen have become such a key part of galactic life over the last few decades. The Fen happily encourage this line of thinking, most unconsciously but others blatantly playing up the role of ‘mysterious techno-wizard’ complete with robe, pointy hat and toolbelt, much to the frustration of people who would like more concise answers regarding Fen science.

Much of what comes out of the Gernsback Expanse’s ‘miracle factories’ does seem to defy easy explanation, but there is a rational explanation, one where handwavium is only loosely involved. One of the key advantages Fenspace had in the early post-contact years was a great wealth of advanced computers equipped with artificial intelligence. This doesn’t sound important at first glance, but the sheer wealth of information technology available to the Fen allowed them to take proven systems like the KF drive and then subject them to hundreds of years of simulated testing, in order to find more optimal solutions that even the Star League wouldn’t have had the man-hours to discover. This ability to run through concepts at high speed is the main source of dark science in the Gernsback Expanse, not any sorcerous manipulations or oaths to deities…”

_Dr. Henry “Mutt” Jones III is a trained archaeologist and a veteran of Snord’s Irregulars. He lectures at the University of Tharkad on Periphery folklore when not involved with Irregulars or Interstellar Expeditions field operations in the upspin Deep Periphery._

~***~

> “ _Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore.”_ ~ Neil Gaiman,  The Books of Magic (1990)

_Excerpt from “ The Silver Dawn” by ‘Aleister Crowley VII’ (Roundworm Books, Atreus, 3061):_

“Dark science is the term used by fools and those wishing to fool others to describe the magick that has spread from the Gernsback Expanse back into the human realm. To speak endlessly on machine minds and the spread of information is to expound on only a small part of a far greater whole. The greater magick of the Universe has been uncovered by handwavium. This created a chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and — yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible. Dark science is no such thing — say rather that it is the true science of Light, and that Light shines on all things, even that which desires to be hidden, and that which hides shuns the Light and calls it Dark…

(…) The True Science has been bound into the great Gernsback Codex, a compilation of notes and equations from the Sorcerers Supreme described in the notation of scientists and skeptics. This is the wisest course of action, for to reach those who do not comprehend the inner workings of magick it is good to speak to them in a language they understand. Mathematics is the last remaining vestige of the Noachian tongue; Light and Life both dance to the tune of Number and all things are described therein. Present the skeptic with ritual and he will laugh it off as delusion and mummery; present him with an equation and the mind long-shuttered to the nature of reality will have the blinds torn away…

(…) The greatest gift the Fen have given the world of men is this spiritual reawakening. Without their Sorcerers and without their Codex seekers may have been continued to wander lost for untold generations, only a few achieving the True Science we knew to be possible but could not grasp by ourselves. Now we may seek and find the destiny of our race as one…”

‘ _Aleister Crowley VII’ is the working pseudonym of the individual calling themselves Sorcerer Supreme within the Free Worlds. M. Crowley considers themselves the seventh incarnation of the infamous Terran satanist / magician. This is their first book._

~***~

_Excerpt from “ Technical Readout 3025 (Internal Version)” by Comstar Information Services (3025):_

“Despite having less than five years practical experience with the KF drive, the people of the Gernsback Expanse have applied their somewhat frightening technical talents to the problem and developed in that span not just a basic KF drive but two variations on the theme, one of which is potentially the biggest advance in hyperspace travel since the development of the compact core during the Star League.

The Enhanced Kearny-Fuchida or EKF drive is the best-known Fen innovation on the jump drive. The design itself is almost devious in its simplicity. A large fraction of what we would call essential equipment for a KF drive is omitted, while the the ‘enhanced’ germanium core incorporates a lattice structure similar to a compact core, but arranged in such a way that heat buildup is significantly lower than a standard or compact unit. Refinements to the charging mechanism allow the core to recharge within 72 standard hours without taking damage.

While the EKF seems revolutionary in scope at first glance, it’s actually more an evolutionary step away from the classic KF drive. Very few of the enhancements are what we’d call new: even the increased jump range from 30 to 50 light years has precedent with the history of KF theorycrafting and design. Many of the concepts brought together in the EKF were floated by engineers during the Star League but were never implemented for political or economic reasons. Of particular note the EKF core is a difficult thing to build, requiring significant retooling of existing yards, a long and expensive process during which no KF drives of any kind could be produced.

Now that the EKF has been revealed and demonstrated its worth, yards in all the Successor States have begun the necessary retooling to produce EKF drives. The first EKF variants on the common _Invader_ and _Merchant_ class jumpships are expected to be in service no later than 3031.

The other variation on the KF drive produced by the Fen is more interesting on a technical level, but as a fully-fledged system could be considered more a noble failure or niche product. The miniaturized KF or ‘stutterwarp’ drive is the first attempt at intersecting Kearny-Fuchida hyperspace theory with handwavium-based technology, or at least the first one we’re aware of. The device itself is deceptively simple, consisting of a germanium core module and secondary systems consisting of traditional Fen reactionless drive modules. This highly compact drive unit can be incorporated into vessels as small as 200 tons, possibly smaller (though this remains speculation on our part). The drive has a maximum safe jump range of ten light years, and through use of Fen power generators and management systems can recharge for another jump in 72 hours. 

Our own intelligence corroborates Fen stories on stutterwarp’s creation: instead of being a concerted effort by one of the major power blocs in Fen space, the stutterwarp was developed by a hobbyist who managed to be in the right place at the right time. Stutterwarp’s advantages within the Gernsback Expanse are obvious: the engine is a great deal cheaper to produce than a standard KF derivative, it’s much simpler to retrofit into existing Fen transports, it’s in theory as scalable as other handwavium engine designs and it’s competitive with subspace travel, at least within the Gernsback Expanse. The major downside to stutterwarp is the highly limited range: a maximum jump distance of ten light years makes stutterwarp vessels uneconomical in the majority of the Inner Sphere.”

~***~

_Excerpt from “ Myths, Legends and Conspiracies of the Gernsback Expanse” by Henry Jones III (University of Tharkad Press, 3050):_

“The alien stargates are the most fascinating things the Fen brought with them from their home universe. The stargates appear to have been part of a wider transportation network stretching an unknown distance from Tellurian space, and they were placed in the general vicinity of Sol sometime around the end of the last ice age on the homeworld. More intriguingly is the fact that the gates are built out of exotic stable transuranic elements – something only seen occasionally in particle accelerators and near pulsars – and sandwiched together by a breed of handwavium unlike anything developed in the Gernsback Expanse, which suggests that handwavium may not be as uncommon in the Fen’s home universe as they thought. 

The Fen discovered the first two in 2013 TD and uncovered the wreckage of a third shortly before first contact. So far they’ve managed to decipher bits and pieces of the stargate control system, enough to activate the linked pair and use them for quick transport. The Tannhauser Research Institute on Yggdrasil and the Aulë Foundation on Arda host hundreds of scientists from all over known space, all delving into the deeper secrets of stargate construction and operation…”

~***~

> “ _There are two possibilities: either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”_ ~ Arthur C. Clarke

> “ _A warning, an admonishment, a statement of principle, and a truism:_ Mind the Weave _. Over and over again, thirty seven times and counting across various structures:_ Mind the Weave _. What is the Weave? Well that pictograph was awfully clear—it looks just like a big web with a Pandora gate sitting right in the middle.”_ ~ ‘Lord of Light,’  Eclipse Phase: Gatecrashing (2010)

**Soviet Ministry of Science, Korolevgrad, Luna**  
 **10 June 3021**

While most of Fenspace hadn’t seen much disruption thanks to the Event, the Ministry of Science wasn’t so lucky. As soon as the Ministry had confirmed that their pack of mad scientists weren’t responsible for the Event, they were immediately tasked to check up on all the _other_ packs of mad scientists running around and make sure that they didn’t do the whatever-it-was-the-Event-did. From there the Ministry swung into a hundred different projects related to the post-Event world: developing sensor packages for the KF detector grid, running tests on memetic tweaks for potential trade goods, environmental assessments of the exosolar worlds. And then the pirates invaded and half of these projects were shelved ‘for the duration’ while the Ministry worked on XCOM-related materials like salvaging the pirates’ command Overlord, EKF development and on and on it went. _Change_ was in the air, hanging over the whole of Fenspace like a thick fog, but to make that change real required a lot of patience and hard work. Worse, it required _paperwork_. Which is where Deidre Griest was on a sunny June day, at her desk dealing with no small amount of paperwork, her hair a neutral white with streaks of bored gold flickering through.

A knock came at the office door. “C’mon in,” Deidre said, hair shading to a curious pink. In stepped a stout man, dark of skin and eye, carrying a tablet and wearing an expression of slight worry. Tom Palmer had once upon a time been an undergraduate at Cornell, working with an eccentric upperclasswoman on a cybernetics project. Years later that upperclasswoman invited him to join her team of budding mad scientists on the Moon, and Tom never looked back. “Oh hey, Tom,” Deidre said, the pink brightening to a pleased cotton-candy color. “What’s up?”

“Got something from the stargate project,” Tom said. “We think… well, we think it’s pretty big.”

“Oh?” The stargate group was one of the longest-running and most frustrating projects in the Ministry. It had been over a decade since the Soviet expedition to Delta Pavonis had found the alien stargate and it’s twin in the Zeta 1 Reticuli system, and all their forays into the workings of the damned things had very little to show. Oh, they could turn them on and use them to get between the two solar systems, and they could trigger a dump of data that was apparently a system log of some sort, but the more advanced functions or even how it worked seemed beyond them.

“Yeah,” Tom nodded. “We hit a breakthrough in the translation matrix.” He offered the tablet to Deidre, who took it and started looking at the scrolling alien information. “So we’re running the log from Night’s Door through translation, and this part here?” A column flashed red. “This looks like an anomaly in the activity log, so we ran it through translation and got this:”

> (B313B5598728) ERROR: NETWORK TRANSMISSION LOST

“Huh,” Deidre said, hair shifting to a thoughtful brown. “And the tag in front translates out to a time stamp, right? So that would mean we can put a definitive date and time on when the Event happened. That’s good work, Tom.”

“It gets better,” Tom replied. “So we see the event but there’s more in the log, so we start looking at the next couple entries.” The data scrolled down to reveal another column of messages:

> (B313B5622925) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK  
>  (B313B5623012) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK  
>  (B313B562BA75) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK  
>  (B313B513AA10) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK  
>  (B313B5950125) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK  
>  (B314B7123925) REQUESTING PING FROM NETWORK

“It does this about every sixteen hours for an Ardan year.” Tom said. “We think it’s trying to call back to the next gate in the chain.”

“Yeah, basic network architecture, one part gets cut off it tries to reconnect.”

“Right, but after that year passes it gets interesting.”

> (B314B7123925) SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE NETWORK IN RANGE

Diedre blinked, the brown in her hair fading into an astonished sky blue. “Wait, no,” she said. “It’s, it’s _warchalking?_ That’s… I did the theoretical work when we first discovered the gate. We thought the network topology was fixed, that it _had_ to be fixed in order to sustain a stable network. That means…” she trailed off, then smiled. “That means the gates will automatically reform a stable network when cut off. That’s a huge leap in our understanding of the mechanics!”

“Yeah,” Tom said with a nervous smile. “That’s what we thought at first. Then we kept looking at the log, trying to figure out what it’s doing, right? We think the gate uses some sort of low-frequency subspace radar for the connection ping. Anyway, it keeps expanding the search radius, maybe a third of a light year every day… until about a year ago.”

“A year ago, and it stopped… wait.” Deidre’s hair went a shocked red. “It found something. You’re standing there with your butt on the back of your body and you’re telling me it _found something?_ ”

Tom shook his head. “We thought it was a gag at first,” he said. “Something the guys in xenobio or manadynamics snuck into the machine on a dare. I mean, you’re right. By everything we know about this place, that should be impossible. But then we pulled the clean copy out of storage and, well…” He scrolled down and revealed the end of the log:

> (16133343BC7) NETWORK LOCATED. NEGOTIATING WITH HOST.  
>  (16133343BC7) HANDSHAKE CONFIRMED. RECONNECTING.  
>  (16133343BC7) NETWORK TRANSMISSION REESTABLISHED.

Deidre stared at the log, wrapping her mind around the totality of the words on the screen. After a long moment she cleared her throat and asked quietly, “Where?”

“We don’t know,” Tom said flatly. “We probably won’t know unless we send a probe and do a star fix, but based on how Night’s Door stores addresses we think the gate’s connected to three stargates somewhere within 1,200 to 1,400 light years of Zeta 1.”

Deidre hummed tunelessly and ignored the sudden itching feeling in her cyberarm, hair returning to a brownish shade as she called up a map of the Inner Sphere on her workstation with Sol and Zeta 1’s positions marked on the edge of the downspin Periphery. Plugging the distances into the navigational program she created a sphere of probability centered on the stargate. Slicing the sphere off at the edge of the galactic disk, the sphere became a strangely thin and stretched donut. Most of the volume swept across empty – or at least uncharted – space, but a long sweep of the donut cut across the near Periphery opposite Sol, the inner edge glancing off the border of the Free Worlds League.

Tom’s eyes bugged when he saw where the search zone landed. “Oh wow that’s not good,” he said. Deidre nodded absently, but her eyes weren’t on the upspin edge. She was looking towards the coreward end of the map, where a cluster of stars weren’t marked but she knew had to be hiding there somewhere.

“You’ve always had a talent for understatement, Tom,” she said dryly. “You guys are gonna get the Order of Lenin for this one, count on it. Good work. GlaDOS,” she said far more calmly than she felt, turning to the omnipresent intercom. “Be a dear and ping the Committee, please? We have a potential problem.”

~***~

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Soviet Ministry of Science, Korolevgrad, Luna  
TO: The All-Union Soviet  
CC: SMOFcon / XCOM Council  
DATE: 21 June 3021  
CLASSIFICATION LEVEL: Violet

1\. Our probes to the three new waypoints available from Stargate 2013b (codename NIGHTS DOOR) have returned, and the preliminary results are as follows:

2\. Stargate 3021a (codename RABBIT HOLE) is in orbit around an object that is either a rogue Jovian-class planet or a type Y star, we’ll need more survey data to nail that one down better. In any case the stellar fix on RABBIT HOLE indicates it is roughly 45 light years from the Magistracy of Canopus planets Palladix and Techne’s Revenge. The probe picked up RF emissions from the area which suggest an inhabited world.

3\. Stargate 3021b (codename WARDROBE) is in orbit around an Eogaian-class planet orbiting a type G4 star (semi-major axis of 0.65 AU; right about within the water band). The stellar fix has WARDROBE well away from the Inner Sphere or any settled worlds we know about. The gate system sits in the middle of a loose grouping of G type stars, no RF emissions detected but some unusual debris indicating possible ETI activity in the area within the last 1,000 years.

4\. Stargate 3021c (codename TRAPDOOR) is in orbit around a Ymirian-class planet orbiting a type L star (semi-major axis of 0.13 AU). Stellar fix has TRAPDOOR just about where we believe the Kerensky Cluster is located. RF emission readings suggest a technological civilization on several stars 90-120 light years coreward of TRAPDOOR, which doesn’t confirm anything but it bears checking out.

5\. I must stress that all our results are preliminary, and that **no action should be taken until the research team gives the all-clear**. The probes successfully downloaded activity logs from all three stargates and translation is in progress. This will give us a better idea of what the rest of the network looks like and who – if anybody – has been using it recently. The lack of immediate traffic or automated routing facilities suggests that this branch of the network has been abandoned. The lack of curious visitors routing through NIGHTS DOOR also speaks to a lack of interest on the part of the builders. Nevertheless I must stress **extreme caution** when dealing with the stargate network. 

6\. My recommendations to the All-Union Soviet are as follows:

7\. Maintain Violet level security on the existence of the gates, with annual review by the Ministry and Central Committee and a programmed lapse to Infrared by 3031 if no new developments are in the offing. Minor leaks, rumors and conspiracy theories are acceptable as always. The research team should be done with the safety assessment by next year at the earliest; at that point we can do a limited data release to the usual suspects.

8\. The locations of RABBIT HOLE and TRAPDOOR should be held as long as possible to prevent adventurers from getting too many ideas. 

9\. Should the field team give the okay, I recommend using RABBIT HOLE for recon on the upspin edge of the Inner Sphere and possibly to insert covert operatives into the Inner Sphere in a suitably deniable fashion. RABBIT HOLE’s primary body isn’t suited for – by which I mean completely incapable of – supporting traditional KF drive systems, so care should be taken in that regard.

10\. TRAPDOOR requires quite a bit of research before we use it for anything; I strongly recommend sending probes to the nearby RF readings and confirming that they’re a) human, b) Clan and c) what we expect them to be before doing anything with TRAPDOOR. The last thing we need is space Mongols tracing us back and showing up through NIGHTS DOOR.

11\. I suggest we use WARDROBE as the main focus of any limited data release, since it’s far enough from the Sphere that people will think more about the possibility of exploring new stars than messing around with potentially touchy neighbors. And while the subject’s up, we do need to start an analysis of the debris seen near WARDROBE. It may be a clue as to why this network spur seems abandoned.

12\. Finally, if the safety analysis indicates that the gates present a danger to us, the Inner Sphere or others, I would like to invoke condition ICONIA and begin preparations for disabling the network within our vicinity. We are reasonably sure we can make ICONIA work via software workarounds, but if that isn’t possible we need to extend feelers to friendly governments on Earth so we have the tools at hand if all else fails.

<signature>

Deidre Greist, Minister of Weird and Unnatural Sciences.


	9. Kekekekekekekekekeke

### Fenspace – Inner Sphere, 3020 - 3022

> _“ **Industry!** Science and technology!”_  
>  _“Big men! Putting screwdrivers into things! Turning them! And ad **just** ing them!”_  
>  _“Build your own atom storage box!”_  
>  _“Bringing you state of the art in soft-serve technology!”_  
>  ~Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo,  Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie (1995)

~***~

**SIG: Interesting Times Gang Part VI: The First Thing About Singularity Club Is You Do Not Talk About Singularity Club**  
 **Security Rating:** _Ultraviolet ++_  
 **Subject:** _Hey y’all, watch this!_

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
So I’ve been thinking about hyperspace again.

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
Oh meat, _seriously?_ You’ve got all sorts of other things to worry about and you’re still working over that? We all agreed that there were no refinements we could make to the Kearny-Fuchida equations.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
I know that, don’t look at me like I’m some sort of D-rank expert system, jeez. No, I know the equations are pretty well refined but I’m looking at the engineering aspects of the KF drive. Like, how big the damn things have to be and stuff. AFAICT there’s no good reason for the drive to be that big.

 **x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
The standard design does tend to be a little monolithic, yes. But isn’t that what the hyperspace working group is working on, reducing the overall mass and other improvements?

 **x Dr. B. Banzai (Banzai Institute)**  
It is. The Institute is hosting the initial simulation work for the new designs, and some of them are very promising.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
Okay yeah the working group is doing their thing and that’s great, it’ll be a complete revolution in interstellar travel yadda yadda yadda. But I think I can do better. Take a look at this. [diaglyph attached] It’s a comparison of an elerium sample the CAMERON crew brought back from Arcadia with the high-grade germanium refined for _Marathon_ ’s KF core.

 **x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
Oh my, this is an interesting image. The two samples do have very similar characteristics don’t they?

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
More than physical similarities, they’ve got identical hyperspacial structures! As far as the Kearny-Fuchida equations are concerned germanium and elerium are the same material, but elerium’s energy density means it’s that much more useful.

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
Useful how? I’m looking at the engineering data right now and there’s no good way to use elerium in a KF core. Even if we had enough elerium to be useful, which we don’t.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
I know! Which is why I’ve been thinking. Why do we have to use the same engineering data to build an elerium jump drive as we do with a germanium one?

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
Um, because it _works?_

 **x Dr. B. Banzai (Banzai Institute)**  
I have to agree with Oracle here, Dee. The base knowledge about elerium’s properties are interesting but don’t have any good applications in the real world.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
Argh! Come on guys, listen! We’ve got a material with the right properties to use the KF equations, we’ve got the equations, we’ve got a couple million years worth of high-grade simulation runtime between us… we can build a totally new drive!

 **x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
Why my dear, I do believe you’ve given us an interesting challenge. I’m game, and I believe Lebia and Eddie might be interested as well.

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
You’re talking about duplicating who knows how many generations worth of effort chasing a wild goose? No offense Dee, but I think I’ll sit this one out. Consider me your peer review.

 **x Dr. B. Banzai (Banzai Institute)**  
Same here, I’m too busy with the main working group’s simulations to give this a proper going-over, but… I’m not as skeptical as Oracle. Good snark hunting, Dee, Leonard.

~***~

_Excerpt from “ Myths, Legends and Conspiracies of the Gernsback Expanse” by Henry Jones III (University of Tharkad Press, 3050):_

“The best-known product of Fen dark science is the EKF engine. Hundreds of jumpships equipped with the EKF ply the spacelanes every day. Rumors continue to persist of even more revolutionary engine designs held in secret by the Fen. As the story goes this engine was created by a dark science _deus ex machina_ , a literal god-from-the-machine that has an intelligence as far beyond humans as humans are beyond animals. The machine god is a common pattern in Fen storytelling, popping up just about everywhere in their media, so it’s not unsurprising to see it spread into legends told about the Gernsback Expanse. The legend likely has no basis in truth, though Fen being Fen most will wink and nod knowingly whenever the subject comes up.

This nameless drive system, according to the story, is capable of arbitrary hyperspace flight in the same way Fen transit drives violate all our conceptions of physics. It supposedly can jump objects as small as a groundcar from one end of the Inner Sphere to the other, bypass jump points and even pirate points without issue and has no required recharge time. This arbitrary FTL capacity is supposedly the secret heart of Fen power: a flight of powerful warships equipped with this rule-breaking jump drive are kept in reserve in case the Secret Masters of Fandom need to strike terror in the hearts of their enemies…”

~***~

**SIG: Interesting Times Gang Part VI – The First Thing About Singularity Club Is You Do Not Talk About Singularity Club**  
 **Security Rating:** _Ultraviolet ++_  
 **Subject:** _Hey y’all, watch this! (Part 2)_

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
Okay gang, here’s the results from me ‘n Leonard’s elerium study. [simulation attached] [diaglyph attached] Whaddya think, sirs?

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
I, um. Wow. _Wow._ This will work?

 **x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
We think so. The high fidelity simulations don’t show any serious problems if we take this into meatspace. We can’t cover every possible variable of course, but we took everything we could think of into consideration.

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
Well… huh. I owe you an apology Dee, this actually looks like a quantum leap in FTL travel.

 **x Dr. B. Banzai (Banzai Institute)**  
I agree, good work you two. Deidre and A.C. will be proud.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
Aw, you’re making me blush.

 **x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
Now the question is, can implement the design in something resembling a reasonable human timeframe? 

**x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
If we’re going to do this, we need funding to build the macro systems and access to the elerium to build a core. I can’t imagine that XCOM wouldn’t sign off on this.

 **x Dee (Black Mesa Lambda Core)**  
Well if they don’t I know the Trekkies will. Or Kuat. Pretty much every yard in Fenspace would sell their grannies to build one of these things.

 **x Oracle (Alexandria Archive)**  
Right, so that’s the macro. How about the elerium? 

**x Leonard da Quirm (Prometheus Forge)**  
That’s a stickier subject. Our design doesn’t require much elerium to work, but we don’t have much elerium to begin with. We certainly don’t have enough to retrofit every ship. Based on our stockpiles we have enough to build… twenty engines. And that effort will take every microgram of elerium available.

 **x Dr. B. Banzai (Banzai Institute)**  
Something to remember in the future, then. We’ll need to start looking for transmutation methods or mining sites.

~***~

**Phoebe, Outer Saturnian System**  
 **29 March 3021**

One of the nice things about having an entire solar system at your fingertips is that there are so many little out of the way places where events nobody wants to see can take place. Among these is the moon Phoebe. Orbiting twelve million miles from Saturn, Phoebe is a hundred mile wide chunk of mixed rock and ice that wandered in from the Kuiper belt one day only to remain part of the planet’s retinue. Out near the edge of the Saturnian system this battered moon is far from the normal space lanes that converge on the more photogenic rings, the Federation colony on Titan and the Galactic Republic’s capital on Mimas.

For the first time in a very long time, Phoebe had a visitor. A small black and white arrow shape drifted alongside the moon, not quite in orbit but in a powered station keeping position carefully angled to keep Phoebe between it and the inner moons. The OV-200 series shuttle had no name visible, only the red and white Soviet rose on the port wing and an emblem of a stylized mesa painted in deep black on the starboard wing.

On board the _MCU Iskra_ , Deidre Griest went over the checklist for the fiftieth time while refraining from scratching her cyberarm. It didn’t itch, not precisely – not even at the point where the carbon fiber met what was left of the original shoulder joint – but the phantom tingle came back every now and then, especially when she was about to get into some seriously hardcore Science.

“Deidre, may I once again suggest that you return to base camp,” _Iskra_ ’s onboard AI said. “I am perfectly capable of performing the mission by myself.”

“I know you are, Iz,” Deidre replied absently. “But honestly you couldn’t keep me away from this even if it’s a horrible failure.”

“That _is_ the problem, Deidre,” _Iskra_ noted. “If I am destroyed in the test, that’s tragic but ultimately the price of advancing knowledge. _You_ however are an important part of the Soviet government. To lose you would be a significant blow to the hundred-year plan at a critical stage. Will you please return to base camp?”

“Iz. Seriously.” Deidre’s hair changed from a distracted pink to a faintly annoyed olive green. “First of all it’d be horribly chauvinistic to let the AIs do all the dangerous work while us meat people get to hang out in relative safety.”

“Some of us were built for that purpose.”

“Ahem. Secondly, we need a baseline human experience to tell us if the jump’s safe. Even if it’s okay for you it might not be for us. And finally... this is historic stuff we’re doing. You’d have to sit on me to keep me away.”

Iskra considered this. “Well,” it said thoughtfully, “that would be counter to the experiment. Plus I’d squish you. So I suppose you might as well come along.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“I still don’t like it. The risk is very high.”

Deidre rolled her eyes. “Iz, what did the last simulations say about failure chances?”

“Approximately 137 million to one based on our current flight plan. That is very chancy.”

“Well, life’s full of chances, and we’re going to take this one.” A mellow tone chimed, and a set of yellow lights on the flight controls turned green. “Okay,” Deidre said, “the drive’s spun up to full. Lock destination into nav.”

“Coordinates are locked.”

“Okay. Okay.” Deidre took a deep breath, held it for a ten-count and hoped that whatever happened next, her strange mind-child hadn’t fucked up the math. “Let’s _light this candle!_ ”

The Universe twisted inside out for a second, and _Iskra_ vanished.

~***~

**136108 Haumea, 57.7 AU from Phoebe**  
 **A Few Seconds Later**

In terms of unpopular vacation destinations Haumea made Phoebe look like Disneyland. Dozens of AU away from anything resembling light and warmth, the dwarf planet tumbled through the vast collection of ice, dust and dusty ice that made up the inner Kuiper Belt. Spinning like a top, so fast that the object had flattened out into a squat ellipsoid along the equator, Haumea had been visited a handful of times in the past by planetologists looking into the mysteries of the Kuiper. These days, the dwarf planet was largely abandoned save for a handful of automated stations, which made it a perfect target.

A flashbulb of false dawn popped over Haumea’s surface as the fabric of space tore and in a burst of light and Cherenkov radiation the shuttle _Iskra_ returned from hyperspace and settled into a stable orbit. Inside the control cabin, Deidre Greist sat stock still, eyes wide, her hair cycling through the color spectrum almost faster than the eye could keep up with. For a long moment nothing happened, then with a twitchy jerk she blinked. Deidre’s hair settled into an astonished sky blue as she checked the board. No red lights, which seemed right but... “Iz,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Systems are within expected parameters,” _Iskra_ said blandly. “How are _you_ doing?”

“I, um. I don’t know. Give me a second.” Deidre shook her head, the blue in her hair shading back down into a more neutral white. “That was a hell of a ride,” she said ruefully.

“It certainly seemed to have an effect on you.”

“Yeah... what’s the core look like?”

“The core’s stable, as expected,” _Iskra_ reported. “Charge levels are down to 80.2% and ought to restore in another... sixty-six seconds, mark. The tidal stress doesn’t seem to have exceeded redline anywhere on the frame. I’m reading yellowline stress on the fin – I’m going to need to get that checked out in dock, but it’s not mission-critical.” The AI paused and then continued, dropping the businesslike tone. “Right now I’m more concerned about your reaction, Deidre. You seemed to be in a fugue state when we exited hyperspace.”

Deidre’s hair shifted to a thoughtful brown. “Yeah, we were warned about jump sickness but that wasn’t...” She trailed off, the brown darkening. “Iz, what did the jump feel like to you?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question.”

“You’ve got way better sensors than I do. What did you feel when we jumped?”

 _Iskra_ considered it, checking the raw take from the sensors. “I felt the gravitational pulse for two seconds – it felt like my hull was compressed and elongated along all axes simultaneously, which was somewhat uncomfortable. There’s a three-microsecond discontinuity, which is I believe the moment when we were actually _in_ hyperspace. We’ll have to go over that data carefully. And then another two second grav pulse on the way out. Aside from that... I can’t say that I ‘felt’ anything.”

“So you didn’t experience any visual... or acoustic anomalies?”

“No,” _Iskra_ said, worried. “What did you feel, Deidre?”

“I felt the tidal stress,” she replied. “The funny inside-out sensation. But I’d swear I _heard_ something during it, like an infrasonic didgeridoo. And you said we were in hyper for three microseconds?”

“At most,” _Iskra_ said. “The entire operation took five seconds. Clock check with the Astronomicon confirms that.”

Deidre shook her head. “My subjective experience says it took at least twice that.”

 _Iskra_ hesitated. “According to what we know about hyperspace travel,” it said carefully, “that... shouldn’t happen. At the very least we weren’t inside hyperspace long enough for the human brain to ‘hear’ anything. That’s worrying.”

“We don’t have enough data to be worried,” Deidre noted. “Right now we’ve got a weird experience in hyper transition. Call back to base, let them know we’re on a, let’s say ten minute hold.” She pulled herself out of the command seat and went aft to fetch her toolkit.

“Roger that,” _Iskra_ said dutifully. “What are you planning?”

“I’m going to hook a simsense rig into my arm’s backup brain and get it recording for the return leg,” Deidre said, yanking a handful of spare electronics out of the bag. “I figure if there’s really something going on then we can capture it on simsense and look over it later. And if not... well hell, then we know it’s something wrong with _me_.”

~***~

MEMORANDUM

FROM: P. S. Lozino-Lozinskaya, (Flag Captain, Red Banner Fleet)  
TO: The Central Committee  
CC: C. Luckwold, XCOM / SMOFcon  
DATE: 6 November 3021  
CLASSIFICATION LEVEL: Ultraviolet

1\. Comrades, I wish to address you today on the question of intelligence gathering within the Inner Sphere. Hangar gossip has said that certain members of the Fen community are relying on the _BattleTech_ books for critical intelligence with regards to the Inner Sphere. I would like to propose an alternate solution based on the Fuyuki City Group’s work in the last eight months.

2\. The simple fact that the _BattleTech_ books exist in our world blinds us. These books may have valuable intelligence but we cannot under any circumstances believe that we have all necessary intelligence on the galaxy around us within them.

3\. First of all, the game books and novels are exactly what they say. The books represent a dramatized, exaggerated, abridged and simplified version of the Inner Sphere designed strictly for entertainment value. If we use these books as intelligence then we are making the same error as a person using television sitcoms as a guide to Earth life. 

4\. Second, the books have numerous time gaps. There is very little material available covering the period in which we have found ourselves. We can assume that the material we have covering the next-nearest point (the 3025 era) is reasonably accurate but that’s all that is, _an assumption_. The debriefings and public statements by the Inner Sphere residents currently within our volume suggest that we have some continuity with the books, but that continuity might not be as close as we think it is.

5\. Third, the books themselves have an extremely short shelf-life. Once we begin to make contact in a regular and significant manner, our actions will invalidate whatever intelligence we can glean from the books. The psychohistory department at the Alexandria Archive believes that if we initiate contact by 3023 the books will no longer be accurate guides to reality by 3027 at the latest. 

6\. Lastly, we should keep Bell’s Axiom of Transfictionality in mind: Just because we think we know the story doesn’t mean we’ve arrived in exactly _that_ story. The _BattleTech_ franchise is over three decades old and there have been numerous reboots, sequels, prequels and fan works about that franchise. It is entirely possible that there are forces moving in the Inner Sphere that existed in one of these marginal works and not in the main line of books.

7\. Moving forward on operations in and around the Inner Sphere on this level of intelligence is an extremely risky gambit. I propose instead to do a high-speed reconnaissance of the Inner Sphere, to collect sufficient data to confirm or deny the sourcebooks’ accuracy before we begin the next step.

8\. This reconnaissance, which I have dubbed Operation ZERG RUSH, intends to use the high-speed RULE BREAKER FTL drive developed by the Fuyuki City Group. RULE BREAKER’s capabilities are beyond anything else in the Convention, much less the Inner Sphere: based on the flight test data acquired by MCU Iskra, a vehicle powered by RULE BREAKER should be capable of crossing the entire 1,100 light year span of the Inner Sphere in just under twenty hours. While this particular level of speed might not be necessary for ZERG RUSH, just being able to get from here to there so quickly is a valuable strategic asset.

9\. The plan for ZERG RUSH is simple enough: Twenty OV-200 series spacecraft equipped with RULE BREAKER and a suite of advanced sensors will be dispatched to the Inner Sphere and near Periphery. Once arriving at their destination each OV-200 will jump to a series of targets [target list attached] and deploy sensors to collect as much signals intelligence as possible. Where possible, the spacecraft will tap into insecure computer networks and grab runtime images. Secondary goals for ZERG RUSH are to confirm or deny the existence of certain secondary groups/parties within the Inner Sphere [target list attached], as well as identify and tag possible friendlies for future contact [target list attached]. Spacecraft on ZERG RUSH are not expected to spend more than six months within the Inner Sphere, at which time all ships are to return to Sol for debrief.

10\. I believe that ZERG RUSH offers us the best chance of knowing exactly what is going on with our new neighbors before contact begins in earnest. It is in this light that I formally request permission to start Operation ZERG RUSH and begin briefing the Faget family as soon as possible.

<signature>  
Captain 1st Rank P. S. Lozino-Lozinskaya, Red Banner Fleet

~***~

**Cafe Faget, Fenspace Metaverse**  
 **15 November 3021**

Cafe Faget is one of the most exclusive clubs in the Fen digital world. To get in one can’t rely on money or power or hacking ability: club membership is awarded to members of a single family. The Faget clan is one of the most influential families in Fenspace proper, stretching across the traditional lines of Fen power into different factions, corporations and NGOs. Instantly recognizable, the Fagets dedicated the Club as a place where they could relax and meet up virtually whenever their schedules allowed it.

Today, all fifty-odd members of the family were packed into the virtual clubhouse waiting for the family matriarchs to make their appearance. Some wore human avatars, as was their usual custom when dealing with the outside world, but others preferred more abstract icons: off to one side a floating ball of light traded quiet words with an inverted pyramid, while a miniature tornado sipped a mai-tai from a long straw.

The clock tolled thirteen and the Faget clan heads entered the room. Three women and a songbird the size of a man appeared at the front of the room and took seats as the rest of the Fagets quieted down. 

[I bring news from XCOM,] the virtual avatar for the space shuttle Ptichka warbled. [Director Luckwold has approved the proposal. Operation ZERG RUSH is officially a go!] The assembled space shuttles cheered the news, those capable raising their drinks (and a few who shouldn’t have been capable doing the same). [The director thinks the idea has merit,] Ptichka continued. [And more importantly, she trusts the family to get it done right.]

“So with that in mind,” added Discovery as the family quieted a little, “we need twenty volunteers for a deniable operation inside the Inner Sphere.”

Convinced that she was in danger of being drowned out by a massive chorus of volunteers, Melchizedek shot up, arms waving wildly and yelled in a voice that could’ve been heard on the far side of the solar system,

“ _ **MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!**_ ”

Considering that no one else in the room had so much as twitched, this sent the entire family over the edge into gales of helpless laughter. When the dust cleared, Discovery nodded and continued as if nothing had happened, “We need _nineteen_ volunteers for a deniable operation inside the Inner Sphere. You’ll need to have crews with good experience with long-duration flight in close quarters, and bay space for the new drive as well as secondary sensors: no extended hab modules or pod cradles on this one.”

Resolution scratched his head. “Why only twenty?” he asked. “I mean, more the merrier right?”

[Two reasons,] Ptichka replied. [First, we only have the twenty new engines. Second, everybody else is going to establish an alibi while ZERG RUSH is happening.]

“Yeah,” Endeavour put in with a grin. “See, while the volunteers are out checking the Inner Sphere for baddied the rest of us are strapping on stutterwarp boosters and checking out the Event zone. The official line’s we’re doing a colony survey of all the decent stars in the region, maybe even poking our wings out a little into the space beyond. All nice and public like, so the absence of twenty shuttles can be explained.”

[And the colonization survey is a worthy enough cause to begin with,] Iskra noted, its avatar bobbing in a semblance of a nod.

“Exactly,” Discovery said. “So let’s talk basics…”

~***~

The volunteers picked and everybody off to tell their humans the news (good or otherwise) the family matriarchs remained in the Cafe, poring over maps and making final target lists. Discovery paged through the maps, pausing at a flagged entry. “Hang on,” she said. “You want to give Mel New Avalon?”

Ptichka looked up from her notes and gave Discovery a cockeyed glance. [She’s the fastest of the youngsters, and she has the most actual combat experience than anyone in the family except me. We all know _I_ can’t go, and New Avalon’s potentially one of the more dangerous targets.]

“But, I mean, it’s _Mel_ ,” Discovery flailed a little in a dignified way. “She’s a good kid, but the New Avalon mission requires a little bit more, I don’t know, finesse?”

[Oh Dizzy,] Ptichka sighed. [Don’t worry so much. All she has to do is make the snoop and get out. How hard could it be?]

~***~

Melchizedek skipped out of the family meeting giddy as the schoolgirl she appeared to be. A mission involving highly-experimental drive systems and all sorts of chances for derring-do was exactly the sort of thing she’d been dreaming of since long before the Event. Just as she went to log back into the greater world a message icon pinged in her peripheral awareness. Curious, she opened the message:

_BBI000: A little bird told me you were headed to the Inner Sphere. Congratulations._  
 _BBI000: Might I ask a favor of you?_

~***~

_Excerpt from “ The Tough Guide to the Sea of Time” by Anonymous (Internet distribution, 3041):_

“The Great UFO Scare of 3022. Yeah, that was us. Sorry.

Let’s get something straight: the UFO Scare wasn’t the point of the whole thing. No, seriously, we weren’t trying to freak everybody in a hundred different star systems, it just _happened_. Part of the problem with being agents of chaos is that you can’t always make the chaos go where you want it to. So what was supposed to be a simple covert recon of the Inner Sphere turned into this huge thing that we’re still apologizing for twenty years on. Life’s funny that way.

So anyway, the UFO scare. 

A lot of people, and I mean _a lot_ of people, thought that Earth and Fenspace were pretty much invincible once we got our act together and started fucking around with the Inner Sphere. Not because we had superior technology or better tactics or moral clarity or any of the fifty thousand other bullshit answers most people will give you. No. we were going to be all veni vidi vici because we were fucking omniscient.

All those _BattleTech_ books added up to at least in theory a huge intelligence bonus, right? Knowledge being power and all, that meant we had a big enough leg up over you Spheroid barbarians. Or something. Serious people who really should’ve known better thought that because we had a bunch a game books and novels of questionable quality we could predict exactly what was going to happen for the next thirty years.

(In the time between Then and Now, a lot of that _BattleTech_ material’s gone public, and if you’ve bought or pirated some take a look at, say, what 3039 looked like in the books compared to the 3039 we all lived through. You can see how well this prognostication worked out. Brav-fucking-O, guys.)

The big problem was, though, that all that strategic intelligence only works if you set yourself outside the general scheme of things, and that just wasn’t going to happen. The cheerful MIBs who rule the Convention were just smart enough to realize this and so they authorized something called Operation ZERG RUSH. To this day nobody knows how they did it, probably stutterwarp or some kind of dark science bullshit, but they sent off almost two dozen spaceships to go survey the Inner Sphere and see how accurate the books were.

This zerg rush was supposed to be stealthy which of course meant that it was about as obvious as a mad bull in a Zen monastery. The Great UFO Scare was about half sightings of Fen ships and about half media-generated hysteria. Though to be honest when you have real aliens running around it’s hard not to worry if they’re under the bed, so don’t feel too bad if you were one of the poor bastards who got caught up in all this nonsense…

(…) Coming back from unwittingly inciting panic all over the Inner Sphere, the ships of Operation ZERG RUSH dumped all sorts of nice, chewy data on the XCOM Council, who set their interns with the clairvoyant space-brains to work. When all the data was crunched and the analyses analyzed, they came up with a solid number as to how accurate the BattleTech books were to reality: 85%. Which to be fair wasn’t all that bad. Most of the broad political stuff was right: it wasn’t like the entire Marik family had died in a freak family portrait accident and the Captain-Generalship fell to their distant relative Ralph or something. The tech was obviously a little less gamey than we’d thought, but honestly after the invasion we already knew that. But there were little bits and pieces that didn’t quite fit the books, and it was those cracks that Fen tended to fall right into…”

~***~

1 September 3022

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FIRST PRINCE:

CLASSIFICATION: OZMA

Your Highness:

The Raider situation has been as contained as I believe it’s possible to do so. Corporal Rodriguez has been publicly punished for her “role” in the incident and the Ministry of Information is pushing our line that this was an elaborate prank that got out of hand. Privately, as per your recommendation Corporal Rodriguez has been transferred to that resort in the New Hebrides you praised to finish her tour and commendations put down in her official jacket. 

Containment on the incident is not 100%. You’ve probably seen the damned posters already - the Raider was easily visible from something like a quarter of the planet during its close pass and of all the things we’ve never thought to proscribe binoculars and cameras, for God’s sake. Internal security is doing what they can, but short of an actual and ill-advised crackdown there’s not a lot we can do to keep the public from speculating.

The Ozma board believe that the Raider most likely was brought to the New Avalon system aboard a standard jumpship that dropped out of hyperspace an unknown distance from the jump point. The Raider then drifted close into the point before igniting its engines, using the sudden burst of acceleration and the drive plume to obscure its origins. Ozma also believes that jumpships carrying similar spacecraft have made remote surveys of other worlds within the Federated Suns and possibly elsewhere in the Inner Sphere. Why the Raider drew as close to New Avalon as it did remains a mystery. Ozma needs more data to understand motivations, but it appears clear to me that this obviously was a declaration of some kind. Of what kind, exactly, remains to be seen. 

<signature>  
Quintus Allard

~***~

**Hong Kong Cavaliers Barracks, New Avalon Institute of Science**  
 **8 August 3022**

“Hey boss, whatcha got there?”

“A message from the other side of the mirror,” Buckaroo Banzai said distractedly.

“... Right.”

“What’s up with him, Rawhide?”

“Ah, Buckaroo’s being cryptic again.”

The message that held Buckaroo’s attention was short:

> **To:** Dr. B. Banzai  
>  **From:** Dr. B. Banzai
> 
> “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
> 
> “A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.
> 
> “A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.
> 
> “Thus the Master is available to all people and doesn’t reject anyone.
> 
> “He is ready to use all situations and doesn’t waste anything.
> 
> “This is called embodying the light.”
> 
> We should talk sometime.
> 
> [Image attached: Hello_world.bmp]

The thing Dr. B. Banzai kept coming back to was the image attached to the message. It was a simple two-dimensional bitmap, a laughably primitive format by modern standards. And yet he couldn’t help but stare at a face that was remarkably like, yet not _quite_ the same as his own.


	10. Cliche Latin Phrase About War

### Fenspace - Antallos, 3021 – 3022

_Excerpt from “ Vigilo Confido: The History of XCOM” by Sven Kutna (Moonstone Books, Luna, 3070):_

“In the days before Fenspace had functional KF capability, let alone EKF or stutterwarp craft, the only way to get from one star to the next was via subspace drive. Subspace isn’t a dangerous method of travel but it isn’t an especially fast one, either: at a maximum velocity of five hundred times the speed of light, the trip from Sol to Antallos would take nearly six months. Anyone launched into the ether would end up months away from any assistance.

For the Antallos survey (named Operation SPECTRAL STAR in official documents) Luckwold recruited two Catgirl Industries Normandy-class starships, _CISC Serenity Valley_ and _CISC Tsushima,_ to act as the carriers. The Normandies were among the fastest subspace drive ships in Fenspace at the time, and also the largest ones capable of carrying any significant military cargo. The Normandy design was also low-observable, a perk that had shown practical use during the Battle of Earth when it turned out Spheroid sensors of the time had trouble locking onto the ship’s signature. This made the _Serenity Valley_ and _Tsushima_ the perfect craft to make a stealth insertion into Antallos and drop off a covert infiltration team…

(…) Due to the need for practical intelligence and counter-intelligence on the Inner Sphere, the Council agreed to establish the Special Circumstances arm. The initial SC teams were taken from the best field intelligence operatives the Tellurian nations had to offer combined with Fen ninja…

(…) Operation SPECTRAL STAR launched in the early months of 3021, while the long process of cleaning up after the pirate invasion was still happening. The two Normandies were extensively refitted to handle the load and the long flight time. The crews were loaded into cold-sleep modules for the 150-day flight, while navigation and ship’s systems were handled by a Class D.vi autopilot. Once the ships arrived at their destination they would make a close pass of Antallos and insert the Special Circumstances team and their relevant gear via specialized drop-pods. Upon landing the SC team would scout the general area and lay the groundwork for the inevitable counterattack, hopefully before Vorax could scrape together another army. At the same time, the agents were ordered to connect with any dissident elements in Port Krin…”

~***~

_**CISC Serenity Valley,** _ **29 AU from Antallos**  
 **27 July 3021**

The cargo-bay was crammed with equipment. crates full of food and ammunition were stacked to the ceiling with only the smallest space between them to allow people to pass. They’d been loaded onto pallets for surface drops, a few last checks being made on the parachutes.

There was enough supplies for months in the field. There was enough extra to allow for any unfortunate losses of equipment, should a parachute or grav-retarder fail.

Politics had chosen their equipment – incentives to industry to encourage nations to play ball. Russian rifles were mated to American electronics, with German body armour and a British-designed Battlefield Awareness Augmentation System.The helmet-mounted radio set was manufactured in Australia.

Selection had been by contest, with the best individuals volunteered from each participating country’s armed services, put forward to a global training regime that sorted and assigned them according to skill, score and experience.

It all came down to ten people sharing the aft compartment of the _Serenity Valley_ , watching a presentation on Antallos, and their mission objectives. It’d taken most of the previous two days to go through the mission in detail – not including sleep, mealtimes and equipment checks.

The commander closed the presentation leaving a few moments for it all to sink in.

“So, Here we are. You are the best, of the best of the best – and that’s the fucking truth. You know our mission. You know our objective. You know the consequences of failure. There will be no fuckups. Is that understood?”

The answer shook the metal walls. “ _Sir, yes sir!_ ”

“Good. We drop in twenty hours.”

~***~

2 August 3021

MEMORANDUM FOR: HQ/XCOM/ANTCOM

FROM: CISC SERENITY VALLEY (CI-201)

SUBJECT: Status Report, 2 August 3021

1\. SERENITY VALLEY successfully received the first report from SPECCIR team Alpha at 0200 hrs ship time. Alpha team has infiltrated the Port Krin area without incident and has set up their preliminary operations point near the edge of the city’s inner sector as planned

2\. The communications relay between Alpha team and SERENITY VALLEY is complete as of 0900 hrs ship time. ANTCOM can relay orders to Alpha team directly through us plus interwave time lag.

3\. Observations from the edge of the system indicate no unusual traffic to or from the nadir/zenith jump points.

4\. Construction of BIG BROTHER telescopes ongoing and proceeding within expected schedule. Optical surveillance of Antallos and near-planetary space will begin NLT 10 August 3021.

5\. Signals analysis indicates that the local authorities are unaware of our presence insystem. TSUSHIMA has requested permission to venture to within 3 AU of Antallos; permission has been put on hold pending completion of BIG BROTHER and review by ANTCOM. I feel this is a risky maneuver that may alert Antallos to our presence ahead of future operations to little or no significant increase in intelligence gathered.

<signature>

Harina, Captain, CISC SERENITY VALLEY

~***~

_Excerpt from “ Michael Westen Goes to Port Krin” by ‘Michael Westen’ (Ballantine Books, 3028):_

When you're a spy, the first thing you learn is that there's a reason for everything. People don't just up and wander off without going somewhere specific, even if it's just to see the scenery. Cars don't break down by the side of the road without something being wrong with them… Or with their driver.

Most importantly at the moment, billion-dollar starships don't just go haring off to pirate-infested third-world periphery hellholes like Antallos for no good reason. It kind of reminded me of Somalia: everyone was out for something, and everyone was sure that someone nearby was out for them. Which all goes to explain what I was doing out on what passed for tarmac, shuffling boxes of what looked like Chinese knock-off Ikea from a dropship's hold into a nearby truck.

I was not the only one at it, of course. A DGSE man I'd had the misfortune to work with once before was driving a forklift, loading pallets of German-labelled microwave meals onto another truck. A ninja with a bowl-cut and a lingering Russian accent stood around supervising, making notes on a clipboard. Nobody expects a nerdy-looking guy with a clipboard to be much of anything, so it makes a useful disguise for one of the best hand-to-hand brawlers I've ever known.

The rest of our team was busy with similar work around the city, quietly observing and gathering information. They might be the weedy kid bagging purchases at a grocery store, the elderly janitor at an office, or the big but slightly slow fellow with the street cart, selling falafel. Okay, so there aren't many grocery stores in Port Krin. It's the principle of the thing. You go where people congregate, where they let their guard down, where they don't look twice at you and don't give you a second thought.

You keep your mouth shut and your ears open. And within a few days, you'll know not just who the movers and shakers are, but who the middlemen are. Who serves as the grease that lets the movers and shakers do their moving and shaking. Because those are the people who can make the useful little things happen. Like getting your buddy the “mercenary” (actually a Spetsnaz veteran) a job with their security department, or hooking up someone a little higher with the gorgeous Korean fen-ninja who spent half her mass allowance on fancy dresses and the other half on concealed blades and explosives. And _that_ gets you _access_. Access to the information you're really there for. Like forces status, response times, and maintenance schedules. Names and contacts of dissident elements. Everything you need to know to hit them when they're least ready for it.

Because when the governments of the most heavily industrialized solar system in two hundred light years decide that they want someone's head on a platter, it's best delivered with barbecue sauce and an apple in its mouth.

~***~

Let's take a look in on some of our delivery agents, shall we?

I've worked with Fen before. Some of them can be amazingly good, especially when they might well have special abilities thanks to the wonders of the Goo. Most of the sheer amateurs got weeded out in the early days of the Boskone War. In fact, I could tell you about… but I'd rather not. I lost a couple of good friends that day. Let's stay focused on Antallos.

Gretchen Weiss was sixteen when the Boskone War ended. Her parents chose that time to emigrate, joining her uncle's farm on Ganymede. Both of them were Shadowrun fans, and when her father ended up head of IT for the ‘Solaris VII’ asteroid station, she leapt at her chance. She had training courtesy of some rather, ah, _interesting_ mercenaries; she had experience tracking down cells of Boskone remnants; and she had an edge, in the form of wave-cyber reflex assists that I’ve envied on several occasions.

It was all three of these that combined to put her in a Port Krin back alley today, on her way to a dive that went by the rather pretentious name of Hanrahan’s Bar, with a Colt 1911 appearing in her hand as if out of nowhere.

“You shouldn't do that, Kaede-sama,” she chided the petite ninja who had appeared out of nowhere, as she slid the gun back under the tail of her shirt. “I might have shot you.”

The last ripples of Kaede's mimetic cloak faded as she stepped to the edge of the shadows. “You are better with your hardware than that, Gretchen-san,” she said with a brief bow. “I was in no danger.”

“I guess that's why you're the team lead, and I'm the face,” Gretchen said. “So, is he there?”

Kaede nodded. “He is in the bar you named. Alone, so far as we can tell, as directed. I will be nearby, and Misha and Darya will cover the rear exit in case of treachery.”

“Just as planned,” Gretchen said, a slight smile warming the blonde's expression. “Let's be about it.” By the time she was out of the alley, there was no sign of the ninja.

~***~

The contact in question – one John Farnham – was sitting at the bar, a pint-glass of beer in hand that he was carefully pretending to sip. The locals swore by it; to John it was some of the nastiest swill he'd ever seen poured out of a boot. He had no intention of actually drinking any, he just needed something to appear to be enjoying whenever a patrol came by. He'd never used this particular bar as a meeting place before, but the message that had appeared in his dead-drop claimed it was a ‘good omen.’ He had no idea what significance Hanrahan's Bar might have to the foreigner, but John had come, and he would wait for the appointed time to see if it was another trap, or if this was genuinely a new group looking to bring change to Port Krin.

He was somewhat surprised by the woman who claimed the seat two places down from him, about ten minutes after the patrol had last swept through the bar. She was about 170 centimeters tall, maybe 60 kilos, 65 soaking wet, with wavy dark-blonde hair framing a decidedly attractive face, a vibrantly loud bird-printed shirt worn over skin-tight black jeans, and a t-shirt with a Japanese logo that he puzzled out after a moment as advertising a corporation called ‘Blue Sun.’ Presumably, her employer, although you never know in Port Krin. He’d never seen her before or heard of the company, but she sat down as if she'd been here every day of her life and bellowed, “Hey, Flannagan! Get me a Mountain Tiger, wouldja?”

The first meeting with a new contact is always the most dangerous. You aren't necessarily sure who they are or what they look like, or if there might be someone standing nearby with a gun on them, they might get nervous and think they're being tailed… or they might have gotten replaced by an enemy agent. The traditional way around this is a code phrase, something you can work into everyday conversation but is unlikely to be matched perfectly by anyone but your contact. It might revolve around the weather, or a sports team… or a particular brand of beer.

“I tol’ you I don’t know what that is, lass,” the bartender rumbled. “You want a PPC, maybe?” The girl nodded, and Flannagan started to mix her drink.

It took John a moment to realize that the woman had done what he'd been watching for, had caused the bartender of the infamous Hanrahan’s to admit to not having something. That was the sign, which meant she was his contact, and he needed to give the counter-sign. “Pity you couldn’t get what you wanted,” he said, casually. “Just be sure not to get the local beer, it’s an insult to the gods of beer for its sheer putrid existence.”

“Good, bad, or indifferent,” she said, turning to face him, “Free beer is by definition good beer.” She took her drink and slipped a small handful of coin across the bar. “I'm Gretchen. Let's get a table and talk about it?” she asked, sliding off the bar stool. John nodded, and got to his feet.

~***~

The Inner Sphere’s commerce depends on two things. Dropships, and jumpships. Jumpships carry stuff from star system to star system, and almost never leave the jump points. Dropships, on the other hand, are the part that actually _lands_ on planets. They’re the ones that spies pay a lot of attention to, because they can deliver all sorts of things. From spies, to invading armies, to weapons shipments.

“What do you think, mes amis?” Pierre (of the DGSE) asked, as we started in on the dropship’s second hold. The consumer goods were done with – the new load was all earmarked for one Joseph Quinn’s personal warehouse. Which was what had interested us about this ship, since Joe happened to run one of the less pleasant local pirate rings, and was currently sitting unhappily in a cell at Gitmo. Shiro McNabb, his second-in-command, had stayed behind, and was rather nervously awaiting his boss’s return. Or, by his preference, lack thereof.

“Agricultural equipment, Pierre?” I replied after a quick look at the manifest. “Oldest dodge in the book.” A bit of work with a paperclip and my watch, a special little present from Lynn Dolittle over at Greenwood, and the electronic lock on the crate slipped open without ever recording the fact that it had. I let out a low whistle at the contents. “Yep, that’ll reap a lot of wheat, alright.” And a lot of soldiers, too. Inside the crate was a Diverse Optics type-30 laser, five thousand kilograms of hot photonic death delivery.

“Looks like McNabb’s our man, alright.” I re-sealed the case, after pressing a tiny little tracker into the compressed foam that cushioned the massive weapon. “Let’s get his new toys on the road for delivery.”

~***~

A meeting that goes well is a good thing. You’re getting what you want. Your contact is someone that you can trust. You start to relax. You have fun. Maybe you forget that you’re still in a place where someone can walk in and start shooting at you without any warning. That’s why it’s good to have someone watching for that, so that you don’t have to.

An hour and a half into the meeting, John was more amazed than anything else. His only disappointments were that he had no idea who these ‘Fen’ were that Gretchen represented, and that the meeting was about to end. They’d spent the time discussing what each wanted, chatting, playing darts, and mostly feeling each other out. Gretchen was a charming conversationalist, he thought, a very pleasant lady to know. What someone like that was doing in Port Krin, well, he’d just have to be thankful he’d had a chance to meet her.

John had been about to move the discussion to scheduling their next meeting when the blonde suddenly went stiff, her eyes darting to the front and back doors, then back to him. “Are you armed?” she asked, her voice gone low and flat. When he shook his head she continued, “Then just hit the floor when the crap starts to fly. I’ll call you on this tomorrow.” She slid a small device across the table to him.

John had no chance to look at the device, just tucked it into his pocket, as Gretchen stood. She grabbed the chair she’d been sitting in and hurled it into the air and across the room. It slammed into the group of men who’d been coming in from the back of the bar, knocking the first few down. The girl twisted around then, producing a slugthrower from under her jacket, stepping to the side to avoid the fire of the group coming in the front door. She returned fire, dropping the first two with center-mass shots as she advanced on them. The third got some sort of submachinegun up, but two more rounds knocked it from his hands.

By this point she’d gotten close enough to start some hand-to-hand. John watched, fascinated, as she hopped onto a chair, then to a table, and then into the goons’ faces, planting a boot on each of the disarmed sub-gunner and his buddy as they came at her. Unfortunately, his view of the rest of the fight was blocked, as other patrons took cover and tables and chairs were tipped over or pushed into improvised blockades. He tapped his pocket to make sure the comm she’d given him was still there, and then began looking around for a way out of the bar.

“Faye Valentine, eat your heart out,” he heard Gretchen say, behind him. Must be some rival of hers….

~***~

Gretchen was in her element, in the zone. Her uncle had spent most of her life teaching her various martial arts and while not a master of any of them, she knew a lot about many. The kicks she put to the heads of goons three and four were merely enough to daze them for a few moments. It was long enough, however, for her to put a round from her .45 into each of their heads.

As if the sound of her own shots had triggered it, automatic gunfire sprayed towards her from the group in the back of the bar. She twisted and bent one leg, dropping behind the low wall to get some cover, and ejected the pistol’s magazine to reload. _Eight shots left_ , she reminded herself, _enough to deal with this crew, but if there’s any more on the way home - oh, hey, cool!_

She broke off the thought with a smile as her eyes fell on goon number four, and the unfired SMG still clipped to his belt. She dragged the corpse a bit closer so she could unhook the friction sling, dropping down again to avoid another burst of fire while she checked its ammo.

“Faye Valentine, eat your heart out,” she muttered with a smile.

Her timing was perfect. Just as the goons were reloading, she did a quick shoulder roll past the end of the wall to come up to one knee. They were just starting to chamber rounds into their own subguns when she brought the small automatic to her shoulder and opened fire. Gretchen’s nigh-inhuman speed and accuracy proved the better of the goons’ numbers, with a three-round burst catching each one square in the chest and leaving them slumped in a pile.

The shootout over, she simply dropped the weapon, stood, and walked out the door, calm as you please.

~***~

Bolt holes, hideouts, safe houses. When you’re a spy, the places you stay when on an operation tend to be bottom budget, dilapidated and look like they hosted every rock musician that ever performed at either Woodstock. How you outfit them, though, can make or break an operation. Using an abandoned hotel as a base has many advantages and disadvantages like plenty of room and clear sight lines. The fact that it was abandoned would be known to the locals. But, if you came in looking like you were opening it back up for business, the locals would probably overlook it… until you start turning away customers, or won’t commit to a reopening date.

~***~

Sometimes, things go perfectly smoothly. Sometimes they get complicated. And sometimes it’s the complicated bits that clear the path for you to find out what’s really going on.

“We had a bit of a problem after the meet,” Gretchen said, as I walked into the kitchen of the dilapidated hotel we’d made our headquarters.

“I heard. It’s all over the grapevine already. An entire platoon of port proctors gunned down by a squad of DEST ninja, I think that was the best version.” I really hoped she hadn’t had to kill too many proctors. That was liable to rile up pretty much everyone we were counting on being somewhat relaxed. When security goons get killed, the people they work for tend to want to know why, and who did it, because it’s a direct threat to them.

Gretchen chuckled. “Eight goons, probably mercs but definitely not friendly. I don’t think they were after me though, or working for the local jefe.” She never could take goons seriously. I’ll admit I have my own problems with that, but still.

I pulled open the hideout’s small refrigerator and selected a cup of yogurt. “What’d they do,” I asked as I opened it, “spill your coffee?”

“Walked in looking for trouble, I wasn’t taking any chances that they weren’t looking for me. They weren’t locals, asiatic bloodlines in most of them. I would peg them as either from the confederation or the combine at a guess.” Gretchen answered, with a shake of her head.

The yogurt started to disappear, spoonful by spoonful. “That really doesn’t mean much these days,” I reminded her. “I’ve read the briefings. Remember Minobu Tetsuhara?” The Draconis liaison to Wolf’s Dragoons, a man from a multi-generation samurai family… as black as Michael Jordan.

“Point,” she conceded. “Looking at the locals, though, I’m seeing mostly Slavic features, with a few Hispanic and Mestizo features thrown in for flavoring. I swear, its like walking through a Montevideo bazaar out there.”

“And about as safe as one, too,” I said, then took another bite. At least they made good yogurt here. Must be something in the stuff they feed the local cattle. “Kind of reminds me of Buenos Aires in the ‘80s.” Not a fun place. And from all I hear it hasn’t gotten better.

“Oh yeah? Before or after Peron,” Gretchen responded with a smile. “Remember, that was a bit before my time.”

I set down the cup and spoon for a moment. “Gretchen.” I glared at her. How could she be in the business and so ignorant of history? “Eva Peron died in _1952_.”

“Not Eva, Juan.” Gretchen answered. “You do remember his little invasion of something called the Falkland Islands by chance? I know you're getting up there in age but the memory isn’t supposed to be going quite yet.”

“1974, Gretchen. And the Falklands were ‘82. Keep up.”

Gretchen shrugged. “Again, before my time, and Uncle James is the history buff, not me. So how bad off does this make us, is it going to impede the mission?”

“That depends. Did you leave anyone in the bar besides your contacts?”

“Just the bartender, and i think that is who they were after. The first one of the bunch that came in the back door was looking at him like it was time to harvest him.”

I nodded and picked up the yogurt again. “I assume, then, that you took basic precautions not to be photographed or leave fingerprints on anything incriminating?” I shouldn’t have to ask these questions, but some of the Fen can be… less than professional.

At that point Gretchen held up her right hand above her head and seemingly peeled off the skin. “Second-skin gloves, our forensics people use them to keep from contaminating evidence. Cameras in the area had already been set on a loop, can’t do anything about passersby, but I made sure I wasn’t tailed.”

“Good girl. Did you leave prints from anyone… interesting?” It’s always useful to be able to set someone up with what passes for the law in a place like this.

“Didn’t think there was time, the gloves don’t leave anyone’s prints behind and I felt it was a good idea to vacate the location before the local police showed up.” Ah, well. There would be other opportunities. Lots of them, as it turned out.

“Alright. Let me know next time you go out for a meet,” I said, tossing the empty yogurt cup into the trash. The plastic spoon followed it. “I’ve got a few samples from folks we might like to have turn up in places they shouldn’t be.”

Gretchen chuckled, “That’s affirmative, you want to be around when I visit with Farnham again? The gunplay aside, he was kinda fun.”

I could just see my old partner’s eyebrows wagging at that. “Romance him on your own time,” I reminded her. “Business before pleasure, and all that.” That old sailor used to be just the same, a girl in every port and every enemy lair.

“Men,” Gretchen sighed, “always thinking with the wrong head. Business, sure, no problem there, but the guy has probably got the most solid line on a couple dozen mech pilots, decent ones anyway, that don’t like the local government. You think he’s just going to ante up when he doesn’t have a clue who is actually pulling the strings locally? The guy is not an idiot and he knows I’m just a go between, so there is only so long I can string him along until he has to at least talk to you, if not meet with you face to face.”

I thought back to the ‘agricultural equipment’ in the warehouse. “Yeah. I’ve got a good lead on something for them to drive, when the time comes. You think we can get enough hardware to set up a few simulators here?”

“I doubt it, at least not conventional ones.” Gretchen answered. “Though the mechs should have a simulator setting to them, allows you to sit in your own cockpit and work through a central computer through the viewscreens. In fact I think the old wolf sent us some toys to do just that, just a minute and I’ll go check.” With that Gretchen hopped up from the couch and went off to the room she had claimed.

Kids. Always gotta have the newest, coolest toys.

~***~

The tracker I’d hidden away would lead us halfway across the city, to a disused warehouse in what passed for Port Krin’s industrial district. McNabb, Quinn’s second-in-command, owned a chunk of the ‘security’ business in the area, so it wasn’t too big of a surprise. His goons made up most of the street gangs we saw, but they were like most gangs. They’re not really interested in preventing trouble, just in collecting their cut. All you need to do is act like you belong, go along with them hassling you, and carry the right amount of cash where they can find it. Too much, they get greedy and start looking for more. Too little, and they get disappointed and beat you up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy getting beaten up by guys who think kicking me in the kidneys is the height of fine entertainment.

Getting into the warehouse itself was a simple exercise for my new watch. Lynn does good work. A good gadgeteer is a blessing to every spy’s work, especially now that some of the real James Bond stuff is finally practical. Once we were in it didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. McNabb wasn’t trying very hard to hide it.

Once we knew he was importing ‘mech parts, the only question was what he was doing with them. If he had an assembly plant, he could be building entirely new battlemechs. That seemed awfully unlikely here on Antallos, and not the kind of thing that would have been easy to hide… nor was it the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a warehouse next door to a ceramics factory.

The other possibility was that he’d dug up one of the old boneyards, wrecked machines dating back to the Star League and the early Succession Wars, when Antallos had been fought over almost as viciously as some of the Hegemony worlds. So far as anyone knew, no nukes had been used, so with a little luck anything they dug up might be salvageable. McNabb clearly was going to try, and he’d gotten at least two dozen ‘mech carcasses into the factory already. I took a lot of pictures.

~***~

A couple of minutes after the shooting stopped, John peeked over the table he’d been hiding behind. Seeing no sign of still-standing goons, he stove up and dusted himself off, picking a few splinters out of his hair.

Mike Flannagan was just picking himself up as well, as John reached the bar, the ancient plastic covered in shattered glass and spilled booze. “Damn, I knew it was going to be a hot date, but that might’ve been just a bit too hot,” John said, straightening one of the stools to take a seat.

“Don’t know about you, mister,” Flannagan said, giving the younger man an eye. “But that little lady just saved my keister, and I’ll not be forgotten’ it. You see her again, you tell her, next round here is on me, and I’ll bloody well try and find that damn Mountain Tiger she keeps asking about. Even if I have to have it shipped in from Tharkad. Might just put some spine into the Patrol.”

“Patrol never lacks for spine,” John Farnham replied, “Just for capability and direction.” He slid his fellow cell leader a drop location, jotted in tiny writing on a napkin. “That being said, she does have the moves, you have to give her that.” The bartender just grunted, tucking the paper into his pocket.

“Too damn bad she’s probably taken,” John finished.

“Why d’you figure that?” Flannagan asked. “Didn’t see any ring or anything.”

“As good as she looks, and as bad-ass as she is? There’s no way that woman is single,” John said, sighing, and drained the a leftover beer in one long swallow. “No way in hell.”

~***~

It didn't take Seong Hyun-ae long to catch McNabb’s attention. Getting Sergei onto his security team was even easier. Getting a couple of techs in to help fix up his new toys would be no trouble at all… and we’d have most of a battalion’s worth of ‘mechs in place to strike from behind when the Marines came for chow call.

_‘Michael Westen’ is the pseudonym of one or more of the Special Circumstances operatives inserted into Antallos ahead of the 3022 counter-invasion._

~***~

**XCOM Council Chambers, Pavonis Geofront, Mars**  
 **30 August 3022**

By its very nature the XCOM Council was a blend of Fen and Earth cultures. While the majority of the council members were from Earth, representing the old space powers and the United Nations, the main communications relays between the Council and XCOM HQ were all Fen and done up in true Fen style. This is kind of a long-winded way of explaining that when Commander Cynthia Luckwold walked into the Council Room in her no-longer-temporary headquarters building in Pavonis Mons’ geofront, the entire XCOM Council was waiting for her in the form of a dozen blurred silhouettes, each with a light source conveniently behind them for that added touch of menace.

Cynthia suspected that even the more staid Council members rather enjoyed the system, as it let them indulge in every sinister council of ominousness cliche in the book for the first time in their careers.

“Report, Commander,” the spokesman intoned.

“SPECTRAL STAR has their intelligence network online,” she said. “XCOM ground forces are… well, they’re about as ready as they’re going to be without actual combat experience. We can begin operation DIRE GIFT as soon as the Council approves.”

“And what is your… assessment of the success of DIRE GIFT?”

Cynthia cocked her head. “We’ve spent the last year and a half pushing our people for this mission. They’ll do the job and do it well,” she replied with a thin smile. “I don’t produce failures, Councilman.”

One of shadowy figures made a rusty sound that sounded suspiciously like an evil laugh, and Cynthia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Very well, Commander,” the spokesman said. “The Council has reviewed your readiness and agrees. Operation DIRE GIFT is approved. How soon will XCOM be able to act?”

“Two weeks to assemble the fleet, then seven weeks’ transit.”

“We leave the operation in your capable hands, Commander. Do not disappoint us.” The viewscreens blinked out and Cynthia sighed. Something about the Fen nature produced wiseasses or drama queens, and it was infectious. 

Ah well, nothing to do about it now. She pulled out her phone and called up her main adjutant. “Bradford? It’s time. Get everything mobilized,” she said and hung up without waiting for a reply.

~***~

_**JS Kip Brannigan,** _ **Sol System**  
 **17 September 3022**

Once upon a time there was a spy who thought she was very clever. When the time came to choose a pseudonym, she picked something she saw once in a dusty old archive. It was a mild pun on spycraft, but just normal enough that nobody would think otherwise and _so_ obscure that only an expert in medieval flatscreen entertainment would ever pick up on it. Then she came to this world, this funhouse mirror version of Terra, and it seemed like half the damn population were experts in one form of old media or another. Thankfully none of them picked up on the hidden meaning – or, she reasoned, none ever picked up enough to ask the forbidden question anyway – and she’d gotten used to random people asking her about Moose and Squirrel after the first two months.

Now, Captain Natasha Fatale stood ( _actually stood, in one full gee! O brave new world!_ ) on the flight deck of her beloved _Kip_ and wondered how exactly she was going to explain all of this to MIIO.

“How’re we doing, Welshy?” she asked her ops manager.

“Just waiting on the stragglers, Cap’n,” Welshy said. “ _Dearborn_ ’s lining up for docking right now.”

“Keep me informed,” she replied, then turned her attention back to the main readout. Seven jumpships, the remains of Vorax’s fleet of conquest, hung off the zenith point waiting for the call to jump back towards home. Only a few of the dropships they’d carried into the system remained intact; those were mostly attached to the Invaders. The rest of the fleet carried an odd assortment of cobbled-together dropships and other, more alien shapes. Tasha glanced at the icon for the _Star Trekker_. That particular ship had a pair of Mule-sized cargo pods docked to it, with God-only-knows-what hiding inside as a surprise for Port Krin.

The _Kip_ , for her part, had lucked out in carrying two of the more normal-looking droppers in the Fen armada. The rebuilt Leopard (named _Leopard_ , in a move that stunned Tasha in its lack of originality) didn’t look much different from the ones she’d seen before, and the bigger ship looked reasonably Union-ish, though it was missing the usual gun blisters. She idly considered trying to mutiny once they were back in familiar stars, maybe try and get _Kip_ and her cargo back safely to a Davion yard, but then stuffed that thought down into a deep, dark crevice. She was a spy, not a commando, and going toe to toe with angry mechwarriors and ASF pilots was not in the job description.

The ship rattled, knocking Tasha out of her reverie. She swallowed an oath; these people might have miraculous science and technology but when it came to dropship operations they weren’t just rank newbies, they were shitty drivers to boot. “ _Dearborn_ ’s docked,” Welshy said unnecessarily. “Plus a shiny new dent in the port collar housing.”

“Wonderful,” Tasha groaned. “Relay to _Dearborn,_ tell them to secure for jump… and that they should space their helmsman. How’re the coordinates coming, Phred?”

The navigator looked up from his computer. “The first waypoint’s locked into the computer, skipper,” he said. “Just waiting for the go code.”

“Very good, Phred. Sparks, let know Flag know we’re ready when they are.”

“Will do, ma’am.” The crew busied themselves with the last few tasks before a jump, and Tasha allowed herself one last chance to luxuriate in the feeling of full gravity on the bridge. She wondered what would happen once they left Fenspace. Would the magic vanish once they crossed the threshold? That might prove unpleasant.

“Message from _Pridwen_ ,” Sparks called out. “The word is given.”

“Sound jump alarm and fire up the engines,” Tasha ordered. “Let’s get this show on the road.”


	11. Scenes from the Accelerando

### Inner Sphere – Periphery, 3022

> _**Accelerando:** (adv.  & adj.) Gradually accelerating or quickening in time. Used chiefly as a direction._

_Excerpt from lecture series “ Love and Hate in the Time of Greyface” _by Sun-Tzu Liao (3081):__

“The Accelerando is the name we give to the 3020s in general, that point in history where over a generation things go from the ordinary, comforting madness of the Succession Wars to the quick-paced bewildering madness of the handwavium age. Most people, if you ask them, will blame the Fen for everything that happened during the Accelerando, but this is the sort of thinking our ancestors used to blame witchcraft for every little problem under the sun.

Contrary to what you might’ve heard, the Fen are not responsible for the events of the Accelerando. Much like a pebble that starts an avalanche, they were merely the first cause. Even if the Fen had simply stayed hidden in their Periphery lair, by 3020 the avalanche had already begun. Handwaved goods had been circulating for more than enough time for mad scientists across a thousand light years of space to extract their own handwavium samples and start… experimenting. The Fen had yet to show themselves, but by the end of 3021 the Accelerando was already upon us, not that we knew it at the time, and the end of the old order was within sight…”

~***~

#### X: Waiting for Frankenstein

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **3 March 3022**

Ruling a world (well, a city, but since Port Krin was _the_ city on Antallos it came down to much the same thing) was a tricky thing, but at least it kept Aidan Vorax’s mind off his other troubles. As long as he kept to the routine of making sure the right people were bribed, the carabinieri were still loyal and the peasants were kept down, things were just fine. Then there were times like right now, when the dependable paperwork of despotism dried up and Vorax couldn’t help but let his mind wonder.

He picked up his office phone and dialed a well-known number. “Report,” he said as soon as somebody picked up.

The space traffic controller on the other end stifled a sigh. “No large emergence events or signals from Colonel Frankenstein,” he replied in long-suffering weariness. “We’ll let you know the instant our scopes see anything.” It was the same thing he’d said for the last year, and Vorax apparently never tired of hearing it.

“Very good,” Vorax grunted and hung up the phone. Turning his eyes to the wall, he wondered. Frankenstein’s troops should have arrived at this Fenspace place already. Reducing a neobarb planet didn’t take that long, no more than a few months at most. In theory they should already be on their way back, or at least have sent one of the jumpships back with news at this point.

And yet… where the hell were they? So far as Vorax could tell he’d flung those men and mechs over the edge of the world. For a man in his position _not knowing_ was a terrible thing, and the lack of knowledge gnawed at Vorax’s hindbrain. He spent the next few moments in terrible contemplation, trying to imagine what might have befallen his army.

Eventually, Vorax dismissed this whole line of thought as unproductive and turned back to his work. There likely wasn’t anything to really worry about. The battlemech was the king of the battlefield after all, it was impossible that any huddled group of refugees hiding in the Wastes could do anything to stop a full company’s worth. Frankenstein was just taking his time, maybe there were more neobarbs than anticipated. They did seem to breed like roaches after all, and all for the better. Traffic in the downspin was lower than anticipated, and the slave pens were getting empty. So let the good colonel dawdle, all the more profit when he came back.

And yet… where the hell were they?

~***~

#### IX: Werewolves of Canopus (aroo)

**Canopus IV, Magistracy of Canopus**  
 **7 February 3022**

> _Survey log #10, Dr. Keiko Moonsong: MIM wants data on how our new toys work, and right now I have nothing to give them. This is not making our working relationship any easier. The video discs the traders have been selling seem to have been carefully tailored to not show any technological secrets, or even any serious technology at all. Right now I have a few glimpses of their society, and the import this ‘handwavium’ material has, but that’s it. I’m never going to get paid…_

~**~

Keiko Moonsong lounged (as well as anyone could lounge in an office chair anyway) in her private office, notebook on her lap and a video from these mysterious Periphery people playing in front of her. The traders from coreward had brought with them all sorts of interesting media, much of which had a link with the equally mysterious technology MIM had picked up from sources in the Inner Sphere. All of which brought us to the point where Dr. Keiko Moonsong, professional biologist, amateur anthropologist and sometimes intelligence analyst got to spend several afternoons a week watching the glowing magic idiot box and get paid for it. Life, Dr. Moonsong reflected, wasn’t all that bad sometimes.

This week the video selection was titled “COPS: Fenspace,” Fenspace being apparently the local name for the traders’ home port. Odd name that, but coming from a place named Techne’s Revenge Dr. Moonsong didn’t feel qualified to judge. The video was fairly self-explanatory: a police documentary of sorts where a camera crew followed a bunch of officers around a medium-sized city (Keiko idly scratched down that the city appeared to be a dome colony of some sort, helpful in pinning down a location) as they dealt with the day-to-day problems that happen in any city.

So far the show wasn’t giving any serious glimpses into Fenspacer technology, but it did show a fair bit about how their society worked and that was pure gold for Keiko. She noted absently that bionic cat ears seemed to be the ’in’ thing for fashionistas on Fenspace as much as they were on Canopus. The camera faded out and then faded back into the inside of a patrol car. “ _I don’t mind you asking,_ ” a voice, presumably the patrolman’s, said from just offscreen. “ _My biomod was on purpose, and even then I screwed up by the numbers._ ”

The camera panned over and Keiko dropped her pen in shock. The patrolman driving the car turned out to be not a man at all, but a huge canid of some sort. “ _Messed up the wave mix by using an automated system,_ ” the dog-man said calmly, “ _then I dipped myself without double-checking. My own arrogance bit me in the tail- wait, somebody’s trying to flag us down._ ”

Keiko paused the recording and scrambled to record her thoughts on paper:

>   
> _Wave == handwavium?_  
>  _Biomod == BIOlogical MODification? Handwavium can DO that?_  
>  _Dipped? Self-experimentation? Common in Fenspacers?_  
>  _Bionic cat ears: NOT bionic?_ _ HOLY SHIT _  
> 

Keiko grabbed the remote and fast forwarded through. There had to be a scene where the dog-man got out of the car. The show flickered and she repaused it right as he threw open the car door and launched himself clear. Powerful digigrade legs with large paws, the fur hidden by uniform pants but presumably a similar color as the muzzle, and sticking right out the back a large, heavily-furred tail. She let the recording continue and watched as the dog-man charged off. “ _Suspect’s a catboy heading north on Stewart, on foot! POLICE! STOP, YOU BASTARD!_ ”

~**~

> _Survey log #12, Dr. Keiko Moonsong: Handwavium is even more powerful than I had believed or MIM feared. My media survey has found multiple instances of people who have had extensive biological enhancements done to them via handwavium exposure. Animal features, unusual skin patterns, changes to muscle and bone structure that are almost entirely beyond Star League technology, done with apparent ease. And that’s just the visible effects! There may be even more changes to these Fenspacers under the skin._

> _We need more data. The traders are, unsurprisingly, not interested in handing out raw samples but MIM can get their hands on enough, I think. The process varies from person to person, but I’ve seen enough repeating elements to discern a pattern in the application…_

~**~

It took a month to scrape together the necessary handwavium for Keiko’s new project. Wheedling a sample from MIM here and a gram from the black market there, feeding it with old scrapbooks and sketchpads full of notes and drawings. Finally setting up the test rig down in the basement, away from prying eyes, filling the tank with the saline-handwavium solution and setting up the H/V cameras so every possible angle of the experiment would be caught on video.

Keiko entered the testing chamber, clad in a simple bathrobe, and switched on the cameras. “My name is Keiko Moonsong, consultant with Magistracy Intelligence, and this is experiment number one with the Periphery material known as handwavium. Initial research suggests that exposure to handwavium can set off extreme mutations in humans… and that’s what I’m going to test today.” She dropped the robe in a quick jerky motion. “As you can see, I am an average human female, approximately 160 centimeters tall and weighing 63 kilograms. Behind me is a tank filled with a solution of basic sterile saline and five liters of liquid handwavium. If I’m right, this should be enough handwavium to generate spontaneous mutation. If not then there should be no effect. In order to test this, I will submerge myself in the test chamber for a period of four to six hours, and when I leave see what the results were.

“If something goes wrong,” Keiko took a deep breath. “If something goes wrong then for the record I want it known that _I chose this_. I was not coerced into this by MIM nor by my colleagues. I made the decision to do this of my own free will and in sound mind.” She turned towards the handwavium tank and took another deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said, picking up an oxygen mask, carefully strapping it on and climbing into the tank.

~**~

It didn’t hurt. The thing Keiko took away from the whole process was that it didn’t _hurt_. Which seemed odd, especially when she looked back on it later: the kind of mutations she saw in the Fenspacer videos, along with the kind of mutation she was hoping to induce in herself, by all rights it should’ve hurt unlike anything imaginable. But it didn’t. Keiko floated in the handwavium in a state of mild sensory deprivation, watching pale silver shapes dance in front of her eyes until slowly, inexorably, she fell asleep.

She woke to a sudden sensation of liquid flooding her nostrils. She immediately sat up, gasping and sputtering, then blinking as she readjusted to the world around her. The oxygen mask had apparently come undone, hanging limply off her muzzle and letting the handwavium solution get into her nose–

Wait. _Muzzle?_ Keiko heaved herself out of the tank and stood up in front of a mirror she’d laid out just for this purpose.

Going into the tank she’d been a human woman of average height and weight. Coming out of it she was something more: a full half-meter taller, covered in sleek black fur, tall pointed ears on top of a distinctly canine head and quick glimpses of a bushy tail wagging (!) behind her. Keiko gazed at herself, shaking a little as she reached out to touch the monster in the mirror.

“It seems,” she said shakily. Her voice had shifted a little downwards, with an undertone of growling behind it. “It seems the experiment was a complete success.” She smiled fangily.

Having achieved scientific history and possibly every last one of her old dreams at once, the newly-minted wolf did the only thing that made sense in the moment: she threw her head back and howled.

~***~

#### VIII: Up

**New Avalon Institute of Science**  
 **6 July 3022**

“So if this goes like this, and then we apply the gyroscope like so…”

“Hey, who turned on the system?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m busy with this… there!”

Click. Whirr.

“Whoa hey hey HEY power just spiked shut it down shut it DOWN-”

~**~

" _There’s been an incident at the Institute_ ," was all anybody would say, and as Hanse Davion rushed to the scene in his private subway he went over the possibilities. Accidents happened, especially in research facilities and even more so in ones dealing with lostech. The First Prince suspected sabotage was the culprit; agents from the other states were crawling all over the Institute, the price of doing business really, and if Takeshi Kurita or Max Liao wanted to stop a particularly interesting vein of research or steal something, then arranging an ’accident’ was the best way to go about it.

This was what was going through Hanse’s mind as he emerged from the subway station onto the Institute quad to find, to his considerable surprise, something completely different.

The Experimental Physics building, one of the keystones of the Engineering College, was floating in mid-air. From the station it was hard to judge but Hanse could clearly see the portico steps above the rooftops from where he was, which meant that the building had to be fifty to a hundred meters up.

~**~

“Hello, your highness,” Buckaroo said pleasantly, as if he coordinated battlemechs preventing large buildings from taking to the sky every day. “I see you got the message.”

“I did,” Hanse said. “I, that is to say,” he continued, spreading out his hands to encompass the entire absurd situation. “ _What._ ”

Buckaroo glanced around. “Earlier this morning the Physics department was experimenting with the Project Ozma materials,” he said quietly. “One of the computers had an unusual blueprint stored on it and they decided to try and build it. Either they switched it on or it switched itself on and, well…” Hanse just stared. “My team was called out to keep the building from drifting with the wind while the professors tried to fix it. Obviously they haven’t succeeded yet,” Buckaroo said dryly. “They’re still working on it, though.”

“I… see.” Hanse said slowly. He looked around at the crowd of students hanging around the verge. “Lots of spectators,” he noted.

“Well to be fair levitation isn’t something you see everyday.” Buckaroo motioned towards a makeshift command tent. “Right now we’re focusing on evacuating the students and resupplying the researchers inside.”

“Not landing the Physics building?”

“Well, right now the team inside is still studying the device…”

“Dr. Banzai,” Hanse said. “What is the problem?”

“We have two problems right now,” Buckaroo replied. “The first is we’re not sure how to switch the field off. We could cut the power but our best guess-” not _theory_ or _hypothesis_ , Hanse noted absently, but _guess_ “-is that the building would just fall to the ground. The second is we’re relying on the people inside to do all the work on the device and, well… better if I just show you.” Buckaroo switched on a portable radio. “Dr. Lutece, can you hear me?”

“ _Go away, Banzai,_ ” the woman on the radio said waspishly. “ _I’m busy doing science!_ ”

Hanse cleared his throat. “Dr. Lutece, this is Hanse Davion,” he said. There was an awkward pause.

“ _Ah. Er, hello your highness,_ ” Lutece said. “ _I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat, things are a bit busy here-_ ”

“Dr. Lutece, I’ll just cut right to the chase. I would appreciate it if you put my building back where you found it, can you do that, or do I need to invest in _anchors?_ ”

There was another awkward pause. “ _I believe grounding the building is possible,_ ” Lutece finally said. “ _But it will take some time. Rome was neither built nor burnt in a day, your highness._ ”

Hanse glanced at Banzai. The scientist made a ’go along with it’ gesture. “Very well, doctor.” Hanse said. “I’ll hold you to that. Keep me appraised.” He clicked the radio off without waiting for a reply and turned to Banzai. “This is insane,” he said, unsure if he was addressing Buckaroo or the Universe at large.

“A bit,” Buckaroo agreed. “Still, Dr. Lutece and her brother are the closest things we have to experts on this material. If anybody can land the building, they can.”

“Mm,” Davion said, looking thoughtful. “If they manage to pull this off, do you think they could repeat the process elsewhere?”

“I suppose. Why?”

“I was just thinking… being able to move entire buildings without breaking them down first.” Hanse said with a small, thoughtful smile. “That could be very useful in case of an attack. Something to look into.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Buckaroo said dryly.

~***~

#### VII: When No One Else Can Help

>   
> _“It was a time when mechwarriors wore denim, smoked the dankest weed, guzzled the finest whiskey, and fired tracers into the night sky as small amounts of C4 kept the beat and the groupies cheered, and the paperwork was lost, or faked, or never even asked about. It was the Third Succession War.”_ ~ KJ DuPree, Hanging Off the Edge (3040)

**Filtvelt, Federated Suns**  
 **18 August 3022**

The Green Suns had some incredibly shitty luck. That was the thing mechwarrior Franz Rayner had on his mind as this neatly-planned raid went completely to hell. It started out well enough; Filtvelt was just enough of a backwater that the local garrison was hopelessly outmatched by a couple lances worth of mechs and just rich enough that the Suns could get a decent amount of loot on the raid. The initial jump into the pirate point and the ride down all went nice and smooth, as did grabbing the LZ.

Then it turned out that there was another jumpship in-system, a merc company looking for some downtime. The mercs signed a quick contract with the local count and all of sudden the Suns were up to their asses in opposition.

The only _good_ thing by Franz’s lights was that the count’s new shinies were either green as grass or just simple. Franz had his Jenner tracking one of the merc mechs, a pretty shiny Phoenix Hawk, probably someone’s heirloom, as it patrolled alone along a set of hills. Franz grinned darkly as the mech stalked past his hiding spot without so much as a sideways glance. These guys were making it all too easy…

~**~

“Okay, here’s the game plan: our mechs will keep their mechs busy while we pull a Party Van on their dropships. Two droppers, two teams. Team One goes for the Union at grid B-13, Team Two goes for the Union at grid A-8. Remember that these are pirates and they’re at least partially entrenched, so hard and fast…”

~**~

Franz edged his Jenner out of cover and aimed at the oblivious Phoenix Hawk. Triggering his SRM battery, a barrage of inferno missiles soared right toward the enemy mech–

–and sailed clean through the Phoenix Hawk to splatter ineffectively against the hillside. “What the absolute _fuck_?” Franz blurted, moving in for a closer look. At nearly point-blank range he triggered his lasers, sending red beams of death out and through the mech. “Son of a bitch,” Franz breathed, then triggered the all-call. “Franz to all units! They’ve got some sort of holographic spoofing system! Check your targets and find the real mechs!”

The only answer was the sound of laughing children.

~**~

“Once we’ve got the dropships we’ve got their comms, and once we’ve got their comms we’ve got them by the short and curlies. Keep them confused, keep them distracted and we can mop up.”

“Question: do we want to keep the mechs intact or not?”

“Um, I think we want _some_ of them, and the planetary militia might appreciate a few donations, so let’s focus on non-lethal takedowns for now. Obviously if they don’t give us the choice take ‘em down by whatever’s necessary.”

~**~

By this time Franz was in a blind panic. Every time he tried to raise his comrades he got something incredibly disturbing over the radio: laughing kids, snatches of electronic music, artificial voices reciting numbers over the sound of hissing static filled his cockpit at random intervals as he raced back towards the LZ. He wasn’t exactly sure what the hell was going on, only that the IFF markers kept vanishing from his HUD, which meant that everybody else in the lance were either dying or… Franz wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“Come on come on come _on_ …” Franz mumbled as he pushed the Jenner’s reactors to the redwall. The dropships were just over the ridge, and at the foot of the ridge was another Phoenix Hawk, identical to the holographic one he’d chased. Figuring that it was just another decoy, Franz ignored it and prepared to leap up the ridge to safety.

The Phoenix Hawk stepped to one side, raised its autocannon and fired a burst. Franz jerked the controls to dodge and heard a series of odd splats instead of the ringing concussions of autocannon fire. “The hell?” he muttered, when all of a sudden half his actuators went dead.

“WARNING: RIGHT KNEE ACTUATOR DISABLED” his computer blared as the Jenner started to limp. Franz swore and hauled the yoke hard over left to maintain his balance. The Jenner stumbled, wavered, heeling over in a hopping motion while dragging its now-useless right leg behind it.

He almost made it. Franz managed to get the Jenner righted and swiveled to face the Phoenix Hawk just in time to get a canopy full of… something. More alarms blared, announcing the loss of radar, passive sensors and the left laser array. The mech suddenly swayed and started to topple over as more of the merc’s rounds hit home. Franz roared in unheard defiance as he felt the lurching sensation of unexpected freefall.

~**~

Quite a bit later, after Franz and his compatriots had been pried out of their disabled battlemechs, the planetary governor requested the presence of their unexpected saviors at the capital.

“A most impressive show,” Count Ondine said to the mercenary leader, a downright Amazonian redhead dressed in a simple uniform of dark purple. “I’m especially impressed that you took as many of the mechs intact as you did. In all my years as a mechwarrior I’ve never quite seen anything like it.”

The mercenary shrugged expansively. “Ah, just part of the experience,” she said. “We like collecting new toys, and getting them pre-broken is no fun.”

“Ah, yes,” Ondine said. “Quite. I suppose I should bring up the subject of payment, then. Filtvelt is not an especially rich world, I’m afraid, and the contract was under duress so our militia might have promised more than they could deliver.”

“Say no more,” the merc held up a hand. “We were in the neighborhood and just happy to help. In lieu of actual payment we’ll take some of the stuff off the Green Suns droppers and our pick of the captured mechs. You can hang onto the rest.”

“Generous of you,” Ondine said cautiously.

“Eh, more like lazy.” Ondine had no good comeback for that. “Look, we’re just passing through, but if these jokes come back again just give us a call via Galatea. We’re in the book.” The merc handed Ondine a card embossed with the oddest mercenary logo he’d ever seen: a rubber duck flanked by two laser rifles and a mug of beer, and the company name beneath it.

  
**THE ORDER OF SAINT GRIMACE**   
**Wrongs Righted Wile-U-Wait**   
**Reasonable Prices!**   


~***~

#### VI: Past Is Not Necessarily Prologue

_Excerpt from “ Notes on the Great Revolution” by Sun-Tzu Liao (Journal of Capellan History, 3077):_

“Everything in the Revolution comes back to Liao, not the family but the planet. Chancellor Maximilian’s decision to place his secure handwavium research facility there made sense in the moment: while technically a border world after the shifts of the Succession Wars, Liao was largely known as an agricultural center supplementing its economy with low-priority military training bases which provided excellent cover. As one of the spiritual hearts of the Confederation and sitting on the Davion border it was fiercely loyal. Most importantly however, it was _boring_. A world of endless plains and farms, Liao was almost the Platonic form of security through obscurity. Only recruits and farmers came to Liao and practically nobody ever left. It was, in Maximilian’s eyes, perfect.

In retrospect it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that a substance like handwavium would find ample purchase in a place as aggressively dull as Liao in the early 3020s…”

~**~

**Liao, Capellan Confederation**  
 **10 March 3022**

The young man looked at the container in his hand. It was brightly colored but otherwise unmarked, no bigger than a tube of toothpaste and judging by his experimental squeezing the contents had the same consistency. He’d found the tube just lying out on the side of the road on one of his regular walks through Liao’s endless flatlands.

He wondered what it was. A few discreet inquiries among his peers provided a variety of experiences and anecdotes, each one more outlandish than the last. It was a long-forgotten Star League project; it was the work of aliens; it was handed out by angels, or devils; it was a loyalty test, and whoever picked it up would become or be handed over to the Death Commandos; that strange things happened if it was used; that everybody had a cousin’s cousin’s friend who used it; objects changed shape; people changed shape. They said it was magic.

Yang Wenli didn’t _believe_ in magic.

Wenli weighed the container and considered his next move. The best results, according to the weight of rumor, came from applying the material to something electronic. “As long as it has a computer chip in it,” said one infoweb poster, “you’ll get something remarkable.” Wenli wasn’t about to sacrifice his personal terminal for something remarkable, but he did have a spare computer, of sorts. His grandfather had left him an old Hegemony-vintage terminal, priceless even if it didn’t work anymore.

“Well,” Wenli said cheerily to the tube in his hand, “let’s see how good you are at resurrecting the dead.” So saying he poured the contents of the tube onto the broken terminal and spread it around with a bit of cloth. The pearly gray substance shimmered in the light and seemed to melt into the plastic.

Wenli watched the old terminal do… well, not much of anything for the better part of an hour. He was just about to give up and go fix lunch when something remarkable happened.

The holotank flickered and lit up. In the display was the image of an elderly man of Asian descent. “My dear boy,” the man said in a clipped accent that reminded Wenli strongly of Davions, “do be kind enough to hook me into that other machine over there, there’s a good lad.” Wenli just stared, mouth agape, unable to process what was happening. The image frowned just a tiny bit. “Well come on then,” he snapped. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Wh, wh, who-?” Wenli managed to choke out. The image blinked and did a pretty good impression of a man who realizes a serious faux-pas.

“Oh dear, please forgive my rudeness,” it said. “My name is Elias. Elias Liao. Or at least I think it is, this whole business is very peculiar. I believe I died. Or at least I remember dying, very unpleasant and I cannot recommend it, and now I’m here in this box. And you are?”

Through this little diatribe Wenli had managed to recover enough of his wits to stop gaping like a beached fish and give this computer-ghost a proper Capellan bow. “My name is Yang Wenli, honored ancestor,” he said. “Welcome back to Liao.”

“Liao?” Elias said, slightly bemused. “I remember it was called Cynthiana when we settled here. Odd that they would’ve changed it. Ah well, no matter. Young Mr. Yang, if you would be so kind as to connect this box of mine to that other box, it seems that I have some catching up to do.”

~**~

“ _What have they done?_ ” The computer bellowed. Wenli hurried inside to find the representation of Elias Liao in a thunderous rage. “Hierarchy! Autocracy! A _caste system_ by all the gods! Everything I worked for, everything we came to Cynthiana for in the first place thrown away like, like _trash!_ And by my own flesh and blood! A Liao should _know_ better! A Liao _does_ know better! There is no curse in all the tongues of gods or men for this, this _treachery!_ ”

“Honored ancestor?” Wenli said tentatively.

“You!” Elias’s holographic image whirled and pointed straight at Wenli. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

“…Of course,” he replied, baffled. “It’s the way it’s always been.”

“The way it’s always been,” the AI repeated. “Unbelieveable. How has this gone on for so long?”

Wenli shrugged. “It just sort of… grew,” he said, a bit lamely. “Enough people found the authoritarian position useful enough and by the time the Confederation was formed it stuck.”

“To come so far and fall back into the darkness… I have been idle,” Elias said slowly and darkly. “I have let things slip. _This must stop!_ ”

Wenli blinked. “How?”

“I have been called back to this world for a reason,” Elias said. “It eluded me at first, but now I know why. In my day I was a revolutionary, and now it seems that my day has come around again. Yang, my boy… it’s time to be free.”

“Free? What, like the Mariks, or the Davions?”

“Fuck no!” The AI snorted. “They’re just like my descendants, though maybe a bit more clever about hiding the whip. No, I don’t mean playing pretend while the true power remains in the hands of feudal overlords. I mean free, not beholden to princes or dukes or corporations. Free like we were meant to be, like humans evolved to be. For the, hah, ’good of greater humanity’ even! We’re better off as a confederation of loose tribes than some monolithic entity serving some half-mad inbred bastard lolling around in a palace.”

Wenli was intrigued. He’d studied Elias Liao’s philosophy and found it interesting, especially how the founding precepts were abandoned by later generations in favor of Korvin and Sarnan notions of duty. Hearing the old man talk in person – so to speak – was even more compelling, but… “How?” Wenli asked. “People have said the system needs changing, or even overthrowing, before now. It’s one thing to talk about it, another thing entirely to go up against the army.”

“Yes, yes,” Elias replied, “it’s easier to shout _stop!_ than to do it. But we _can_ do it, my boy. I fought the Western Alliance to a standstill in my day; it took an army to stop me and they never caught me even after that army came. Take these ’battlemech’ contraptions, for example. They’re impressive, but armor is still armor and I’ve fought tanks before. Won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.”

“You and me,” Wenli said skeptically, “against an empire.”

“At first,” Elias agreed. “But not for long. We’ll find others – there are always dissidents in a power structure like this – and we’ll talk to them, and they’ll find still more and before you know it won’t simply be us against an empire. My children haven’t heard the people’s voice in a very long time, and it is much, _much_ louder than they care to remember…”

~***~

#### IV: The Truth Is Out There

**The Triad, Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth**  
 **18 September 3022**

Two preteen girls ran excitedly down the Triad’s halls. Or rather, one girl, an excitable blonde, dragged a more reticent brunette along behind her. “C’mon, Misha!” the blonde said as they entered the palace library, “you’ve got to see this!”

“Melissa,” Misha groaned, “what are we doing here? If your mother – or worse my _father_ – finds out.”

“Oh come on!” Melissa protested. “We’re in the library, that means we’re studying, right? Now come on, you have to see this.” The pair swiftly if not silently made their way to a storeroom on the library’s third floor. The door was bolted and sealed with an electrolock that didn’t match any of the other doors on this level. Melissa released her grip on Misha and began fiddling with the lock.

“That doesn’t look like a standard lock,” Misha said.

“Nah, had a new one put in.” Melissa mumbled in reply.

“You _what?!_ ”

“Ssh! This part’s important!” Melissa gave the lock one final tweak and the door opened with the faintest of clicks. “Okay,” she said, facing Misha. “You can’t tell anyone what you saw in here, okay? Not your dad, not my mom, nobody. The future of the human race rests on your silence, Misha. Can you do that?”

Misha really, really wanted to roll her eyes: Melissa had something of a melodramatic streak in her and whatever it was she was hiding in that room apparently set it off big time. Friendship won out over sarcasm at just the right moment and she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell anybody.”

“Great.” Melissa pushed open the door and the two stepped into… what looked like a completely ordinary library reading room.

Misha glared. “I don’t know if I’m angry that you were hiding a boring room from me with that crazy promise,” she growled, “or that I’m angry because you’re just being _you_.”

Melissa smiled patiently. “Watch and learn.” She closed the door and the moment the lock clicked back panels in the walls unfolded, revealing a collage of paper, string and thumbtacks stuck into a huge Comstar-issue map of the Inner Sphere. To one side was a poster-sized blurry photograph of the New Avalon Raider with the legend “I WANT TO BELIEVE” printed underneath in block letters. Hanging alongside the poster was a small tablet computer. “Would you believe, Misha Auburn,” Melissa said portentously, “that humanity is under attack by forces that don’t originate from Terra?”

“What.”

“Aliens, Misha! We are not alone in the Universe! Aliens are real and they’re visiting the Inner Sphere right now!”

“ _What._ ”

“I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but I’ve been keeping my eye out. Look at all of this!” Melissa waved at the collage. “UFO sightings spiked a thousand percent this year alone, and they’ve been on the rise since 3020. You can see a pattern emerging in where the sightings are, too: capital worlds, regional trading hubs, places where there tend to be a lot of humans, industrial centers. Somebody is looking at the Inner Sphere as directly as they can.”

“I, um.” Misha shook her head. “How did you find all of this?”

“Some of it’s in the news,” Melissa replied. “But most of the Outsider activity isn’t reported correctly. So I made a few connections, and it’s amazing what you can get away with if you have the right stationary.”

“You built a spy network… to chase aliens.”

“Well, yeah. Kind of had to. Most of them think they’re reporting to Mom, but that’s okay! I’m Archon-Designate, I like to think I rank somewhere in there.” Melissa took the tablet off the wall. “But as to what the Outsiders are _really_ like, this is my main informant.” She handed the tablet to Misha, who accepted it warily. “Say hello to Clara.” Misha looked uncomprehending at Melissa. “Go on,” Melissa urged, “say hello.”

Misha sighed and said “Hello, Clara” to the tablet, and didn’t expect it at all when the tablet flashed and a holograph of a young woman came into focus and looked right at her.

“’Allo, Misha, nice to mee–WHOA!” Misha squeaked and jumped the tablet with a clatter of plastic and an indignant squawk from Clara, punctuated by Melissa’s laughter. “Oi! Blondie! You did that on _purpose!_ ”

“I didn’t!” Melissa protested. “Well, maybe a little but I didn’t think she’d drop you!”

“You gave that poor girl the shock of her life and you didn’t think she’d drop me? I ought to tell your mum about this! She’d be a far better caretaker!”

“No she wouldn’t!” Melissa glared. “She’d have you pulled apart to see what makes you tick!”

“Well, maybe you’re right about that.” The hologram paused. “Why are we arguing?”

Melissa sighed. “So yeah, this is Clara. Clara, this is my friend Misha Auburn.”

“Clara Oswin,” the hologram said cherrily. “Nice to meetcha Misha Auburn.”

Misha managed a weak smile. “Uh, hi?”

“Clara was in one of the tablet computers LIC picked up from a Periphery trader on Apollo.” Melissa put in helpfully. “Outsider tech.”

“Yep!” Clara agreed. “I snuck out, wanted to see the big wide galaxy on my own, I did. Frankly,” she added sheepishly, “I didn’t know it was so big at the time.”

“Right,” Misha said doubtfully. “So where… where did you come from?”

“That? Kind of a long story. Well, more of a short story really. A really short story, actually. You see–”

“She doesn’t know.” Melissa said.

“I was getting there,” Clara grumped. Misha blinked.

“Wait, so you don’t know where you’re from?”

“I know where I’m from!” Clara replied indignantly. “I’m from a place where there’s cities made of diamond and people made of steel. Amazing place. Beautiful, really. It’s just that I don’t know where it is anymore. Or what it’s called.”

“But,” Misha felt a little lost at the idea. “How do you not know where it is? Or what it’s _name_ is? How can you forget something like that?”

“Weeeellll,” Clara said, “I think I sort of, kind of maybe made myself forget? Because I didn’t want to lead any bad people home by accident? At least that’s my theory – I kind of forgot why I forget.”

“Clara’s helped me figure out a lot of the Outsider’s motives,” Melissa said. “Without her I might’ve been stuck trying to collate UFO sightings for years.”

“Your main sources of intelligence are a bunch of spies and an amnesiac computer,” Misha said flatly. Melissa bristled a little at the tone.

“Yes, and I’ve learned a couple things,” she said. “First, the Outsiders aren’t too much different from us. Clara’s pretty much like a straight human, if a bit scatterbrained-”

“Like you’re one to talk, Blondie.”

“-Ahem. Second, they’re taking an interest in human affairs for some reason, hence all the UFO sightings. Third, they’re seeding the Periphery with their technology, for whatever reason. Fourth, they’re somewhere close by, probably not more than a couple hundred light years away from the Periphery’s edge. Fifth, they’re on the move.” She gestured to the collage again. “There’s a lot of them and all of a sudden they’re interested in us. Why?”

“I think you lot’re pretty funny,” Clara offered.

Misha shook her head. “Melissa, this is… _I don’t know what this is!_ I mean you’re talking aliens attacking and you’re showing me weird science and… it’s a lot to take in, okay?” she finished lamely.

Melissa nodded sympathetically. “I know,” she said. “Aliens, right? We may have to save the human race!” She laughed, and Misha laughed along with her.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. “Melissa?” her mother’s voice floated through. “The servants said you were coming this way. Are you in here?”

“Quick! Hide everything!” Melissa hissed, grabbing Clara and sticking her back on the wall. A concealed flip-switch and the room changed back to an ordinary reading-room and the door unlocked, allowing Melissa’s mother to enter, looking somewhere between confused and bemused.

“Melissa Arthur Steiner, what in the name of sanity have you been doing in here?” she demanded.

Misha tried to formulate an acceptable answer in the face of parental wrath, but her train of thought derailed completely when Melissa blurted “ _We were making out!_ ” Misha whirled on Melissa, who answered her look of fury and horror with a helpless “well what did you _expect_ me to say?” shrug.

And then Katrina Steiner, Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, one of the five most powerful people in known space and the scariest person Misha Auburn had ever met, gave Misha and Melissa a considering look, smiled slightly and said “Well, as long as you’re happy,” and Misha just wanted to _melt into the floor_ and _catch fire_ from the sheer _awkwardness_ of the situation.

~**~

“And what do you make of her little project, Simon?”

Simon Johnson looked thoughtful. “Melissa has a gift for intelligence work. Her network of associates is quite impressive for someone so young, and her conclusions… well, they’re fanciful but she obviously put a lot of rigor into them.”

The Archon quirked an eyebrow. “You almost sound like you’re agreeing with her,” she noted.

“Fanciful doesn’t always mean incorrect, Archon,” Simon said mildly. “I’m not sure I would jump to the conclusion of alien invasion, but Melissa has demonstrated that there is something moving in the Periphery… and it’s something I’m sorry to say our analysts have either missed or ignored.”

“Perhaps I should put her in charge of LIC,” Katrina said with a faint note of teasing. “Feeling ready to retire, Simon?”

“I serve at the Archon’s pleasure,” Simon said straight-faced. “Still,” he added thoughtfully, “if you’d permit me, I’d like to add a new tutor to her usual retinue. I’m not kidding when I say Melissa has a gift, and I think cultivating that gift might turn out very useful.”

Katrina nodded and made a note. “Of course, Simon,” she said. “Find someone trustworthy and I’ll see to it.”

“One last thing, Archon,” Simon said. “Just out of curiosity… what would you have done had Melissa not been covering?”

Katrina Steiner laughed. “Oh, much the same,” she replied. “She is my daughter and I want her to be happy, after all. And it’s not like there isn’t precedent in the Steiner line, even the ruling Steiners.” She frowned. “Though she is a bit young for that sort of thing… and I should make sure she’s properly educated if that’s what her mind defaults to.”

~***~

#### IV: Magical Mystery Show

**Lindenmarle, Magistcracy of Canopus**  
 **19 October 3022**

The ship arrived without notice or warning. It kept station at Lindenmarle’s zenith point and broadcast out a series of messages: they were the trading ship _Julie Newmar_ out of some forgotten place beyond the Ruins, they were in the neighborhood and were interested in trade. What did they have to trade? Oh, this and that, all sorts of interesting trinkets and stories from the wilderness. All available at reasonable prices for reasonable people, of course.

The governor shrugged and agreed to let the _Newmar_ ’s dropships land. They arrived a few days later in large spheroid droppers that looked a little like Mules but not quite, with engines that seemed too quiet and too small to lift ships that size. True to their word, instead of battlemechs and soldiers a small troop of women garbed in robes and headscarves left the ships and promptly began setting up shop.

~**~

“Step right up, step right up ladies and gentlemen!” The barker cried to her rapt audience. “Witness the new miracles available from CG Industries! Imagine, if you will, a power source tailor-made for the gentlewoman farmer! No more messing with dangerous and expensive fusion engines to keep the house warm during the winters! A clean energy source, one that will keep Lindenmarle green and beautiful for years to come! Look no further, my friends, for you now see the wave of tomorrow in the CG Industries Artificial Tree!”

The barker stepped back and the makeshift curtain rose to reveal a set of unassuming pole-and-branch structures with flat greenish-black solar cells hanging off the branches. “‘Now Carina,’ I can hear you ask, ‘why would I want a basic solar cell?’ And that’s a reasonable question.” The barker said. “What if I told you that the CG Industries Artificial Tree worked on 100% completely _natural_ principles? No heavy metals, no industrial pollutants, just good old-fashioned carbon dioxide, water and sunlight!

“Yes, friends, the Artificial Tree is a godsend for those who want to live on the land without selling their futures for fusion! Step right up to learn more about the Artificial Tree and its manufacturing. Yes, please, right up here…”

~**~

Many Artificial Trees, Internet-In-A-Boxes, Insta-Filter Water Treatment-In-A-Boxes and other sundry items were sold during the CG Industries stay on Lindenmarle. The traders sought payment in food, the occasional bit of lostech, local media and of course the ubiquitous C-Bills. After two weeks of hopping around from settlement to settlement, the governor invited the people from CG Industries to a formal dinner in their honor.

Lindenmarle wasn’t a rich world by any means, but they did their best with what they had. Government officials and military officers mingled with the bright robes and scarves of the CG representatives. The local Comstar Precentor came along and spent most of the evening staring at the newcomers.

The governor found herself talking privately with the head of the CG delegation, the enigmatic woman who called herself Carina. “Where did you say your ship was from again?” the governor asked curiously.

Carina smiled a little. “Oh, didn’t I mention?” she said, scratching the inside of her scarf. “We operate out of Jenga.”

“I see.” A pause. “And where’s that?”

“Oh,” Carnia waved vaguely behind her. “Somewhere in that direction,” she said airily. “I’m not really good with maps, all those dots and lines and dotted lines. Very confusing, can’t trust them a bit.”

“Right,” the governor said dubiously. “I must say that your goods have been quite the sensation in the rural districts,” she said. “I’ve yet to see any of them in action myself, though.”

“Well, to be fair they’re not really all _that_ interesting to look at,” Carina replied. “Just boxes of various sizes, is all. Stuff goes in one end, stuff comes out the other.”

“Still,” the governor pressed, “the ability to manufacture something like that is… well, we haven’t seen anything like it since the Star League. And even then, well, Lindenmarle was never a high-priority world. It must be nice to have the kind of industry that lets you export things like that.”

“It has it’s advantages,” Carina agreed easily. She threw an arm around the governor’s shoulders and leaned in. “Now, we’re planning on heading further up and further in,” she said confidentially, “but I think we might arrange for another stop her before we go home. One last bit of trading, mm?”

“That sounds deli-” the governor broke off mid-word to make a tremendous sneeze. Carina jumped back a little, startled. “Ah. Excuse me, haven’t done that in a while. Allergies. Anyway, we’d be delighted if you came back by Lindenmarle on your way home.”

Carina held back, her posture suddenly tense and the governor couldn’t figure out why. “Of course, of course,” she said, then paused. “Incidentally, what are you allergic to?”

“Hm? Oh, animal dander. Cats, mostly. Why?”

“No reason,” Carina laughed lightly, but the laughter didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I must’ve spent too much time with the ship’s cat this afternoon, I do apologize.”

“Oh, nonsense dear,” the governor waved it off. “It’s not like you knew.” The two fell back into idle conversation, though the governor noticed that all of a sudden the CG Industries people kept a certain distance from her, always polite but staying just a little out of arm’s reach at all times.

Odd, that, she thought. But they’re an odd sort of people anyway.

~***~

#### III: Looking For A Needle In A Big Stack Of Other Needles

**Hilton Head, Terra**  
 **19 July 3022**

Comstar wasn’t having the best year. That spring, strange spacecraft began appearing along the fringes of the Inner Sphere, darting in and out of systems on mysterious errands. Despite the Order’s valiant efforts at message control there were far too many UFOs for the message to stay suppressed, and now the entire galaxy seemed to be neck-deep in panic. UFO cults were springing up all over the uncivilized worlds, the civilized worlds seemed paralyzed and it was left to the Order to try and keep the galaxy from falling into unplanned anarchy.

Far better for the galaxy to fall into the planned anarchy of Blake's servants, after all.

As the UFO reports stretched from spring into summer, Comstar’s best intelligence agents thought they had a handle on who was behind all this strange activity. Two years before agents from the Antallos station picked up a collection of unusual materials and technology, presumably from some long-lost Periphery colony. This mysterious world of “Fenspace” seemed to have advanced industry beyond anything Comstar knew about - and Comstar prided itself on knowing everything. Putting two and two together, the Order believed that the Fenspacers were taking an interest in the Inner Sphere, and it behooved Comstar to return the favor.

Now if they could only just figure out where Fenspace _was_ …

~**~

Summers in Hilton Head tended to be unreasonably hot and muggy, especially for someone who grew up in the northern tea country of Kuzuu. Myndo Waterly suffered through the Carolina weather with the patience of Job, augmented by the best climate-control technology the Order had to offer. Despite the heat and humidity outside, her office always stayed a nice, even twenty-three degrees with just enough humidity to feel comfortable but not disrupt the electronics.

Myndo was in the middle of a report about UFO sightings over New Samarkand. The report consisted mainly of a lurid report about a New Samarkand man abducted and used as breeding stock by, so he claimed, “beautiful blue-skinned women with three breasts.” Obviously some combination of exaggeration and wish-fulfillment, but the report sparked a hundred more similar fantasies, so ROM dutifully called it in. Myndo wondered ruefully if ROM was a bit too efficient in collecting information while less so at _sorting_ it.

The door chimed, and Myndo looked up from the report. “Come in,” she called. The door opened and her nine o’clock appointment stepped into the room.

“It's not in the Trans-Coalsack,” was the first thing out of Precentor Livia Butler's mouth as she entered the office. Another one of Tiepolo's prodigies, Butler had risen from dropship captain to Precentor Explorer Corps in record time, much like Myndo. Unlike the Precentor Dieron, Butler was indifferent to the deeper mysteries of Blake's Word, but her diligence in keeping the Corps functional and her devotion to the public mission of Comstar allowed Myndo to reach an understanding with the other woman.

“You’re sure about that?” Myndo wondered. Butler gave her a dirty look.

“We’ve spent the last two years combing every star capable of supporting life within two hundred light years of the Coal Sack,” she replied irritably. “If there’s an advanced civilization in that region then they’re hiding better than any lost colony we've ever seen. Or they're some kind of _freaking wizards._ ”

“Or we’re looking in the wrong place,” Myndo said.

Butler nodded. “Which was my next guess. The pirates were cagier than we thought and obscured the location. I wanted to talk to you first before I went to the Primus with this, but we need to start looking beyond the Trans-Coalsack if we want to find these people.”

“Anything promising?”

“There’s a couple candidates, but _promising_ might be stretching it. There’s the Turtledove Strand anti-spinward of the Coal Sack, along the old Rim Worlds border, far enough from the Commonwealth that they never bothered to grab it after the collapse. There's also the Nantucket Shoals near Columbus: it’s a nice grouping of young stars that could have a habitable or terraformable planet or three in it. Then there’s the Gernsback Expanse, but that’s kind of a long shot. It’s close enough to the Inner Sphere that the Star League went over it with a fine-toothed comb and didn't find much of anything.”

“Hm,” Myndo hmm’d. “Well, if you’re sure that the Trans-Coalsack is empty of Fenspacers, then I’ll back you when you go to the First Circuit. Anything else?”

“Well, yes.” Butler paused. “It's spreading,” she said slowly. Myndo blinked.

“Oh, Blake, _no_ ,” she groaned. “You’re sure about this?”

“One of my ships stopped in the Chainlaines for resupply,” Butler said. “They reported a bunch of Periphery traders offloading Fenspacer technology. Most of it was stuff we’ve seen before, the handheld electronics and the like, but then there was this.” She pulled out a photo and handed it to Myndo.

Myndo inspected the image of a brightly-colored box, about the size of a groundcar, labeled INTERNET IN A BOX. “Interesting,” she said. “What’s an internet, and why’s it in a box?”

“An internet, and I had to look this up, is a very old name for the Matrix,” Butler replied. “Basically a crude computer-based telecommunications network. According to our reports, that box is an autofactory capable of _creating_ just such a network for a decent-sized town from scratch. They’re also selling something called an ‘artificial tree’ that I don’t understand the details on but it's apparently a solar-power generator that runs on photosynthesis and all my techies are demanding a sample.”

Myndo stared at the box in the photograph. “Get your report together, Liva,” she said quietly. “I’ll call the First Circuit myself and you can make your case there. We need to find these people, we need to find them and we need to get them under our control _now_ before they wreck everything Blake ever worked towards.”

~***~

#### II: Privy Councils

_Excerpt from “ Ill-Made Knights: The Madness of Clan Nova Cat” by Oathmaster Yori Fnord (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3075):_

“Abram Radick is known inside the clan as Abram Far-Seer, not because he was Khan when the visions began but because he was the one who really understood that acting on those visions would mean for the Nova Cats. The implications where clear enough: once the Nova Cats had ‘learned to fly’ their ties to the rest of Kerensky’s children would strain to breaking, and while some would eventually follow most wouldn’t and they would not be happy about their apostate brethren.

When we think of the Clan War and the turmoil that came with it we tend to focus on the big and flashy events: the Trial of Annhilation between Nova Cat and Smoke Jaguar, the fall of Barcella, the Cats flying to the Inner Sphere on the wings of the storm, the duel on Somerset, the rise of Carnil and all the rest. But this sturm und drang would’ve happened very differently, possibly not happened at all, if not for a single meeting between Abram Far-Seer and his most trusted lieutenants in the early years of the Accelerando…”

~**~

**Barcella, Kerensky Cluster**  
 **16 April 3022**

Abram looked at his inner circle, the truest of his Knights. Crossing all caste and blood boundaries, these dozen men and women had sworn themselves to the Lady and to the mission. A finer group of people Abram could not remember ever knowing. “My fellow knights,” he said, “be welcome and let us get to business. How fare preparations for the time of flight?”

Merchant Augusta primly opened her files and scanned them with a glance. “Ship construction proceeds apace, my lord,” she said. “Falling behind a little at the moment but with added supply from the Sea Foxes we will be ready to go when Our Lady calls for us.”

Scientist Kusanagi ran a hand through the great shock of black hair atop his head. “We’ve introduced control measures into the general population,” he said. “By our calculations they should keep the non-trueborn population just under replacement levels for as long as we need to. No overcrowding of the ships, we hope.”

“Sterilization?” Oathmaster Bavros asked, eyebrow raised. Kusanagi snorted.

“Please, Lady Maria,” he said, offended. “Sterilization is a crude tool used by thugs. We’re capable of _so_ much more. No, this is a birth-control measure similar to ones used by our ancestors on the Exodus. It depresses birth rates and is completely reversible. All we have to do is stop introducing it and give it a year to flush out.” Bavros nodded, satisfied at the explanation. “In other news, we’ve made a few more random improvements to our touman-standard large laser. Nothing special, just a few efficiency tweaks to make it maybe worth setting up a Trial over.”

“Well played, Kusanagi,” Abram said. “I will see if Ice Hellion needs a new large laser for anything. Maria? Anything new to report?”

The Oathmaster looked past the conference room walls. “Our Lady is distant in her most recent visions, but I gather she is pleased with us. I believe that Ser Alicia has discovered something, but that is not definite. Also,” she said, her focus returning to the world, “I have had several entreaties from the Goliath Scorpions.”

Abram blinked. “Oh? What for?”

“They seek knowledge and wisdom regarding perplexing visions of the Inner Sphere. Visions that feel oddly like truth, but I do not understand them.”

“Interesting, Lady Maria,” Kusanagi said, leaning forward eagerly. “I’ve surmised that Our Lady may be speaking to others beyond us. Could the Scorpions have picked up on this through the drug haze?”

“Perhaps,” Bavros said. “Though the visions are not of the Lady or her Hill. Rather, the Scorpions dream of a great swarm of insects swarming across a burnt and broken Terra, cleaning away debris and leaving the world restored but alien.”

The council digested this news. “Disquieting,” Augusta said. “And your response to the Scorpions?”

Maria shook her head. “I have not yet replied,” she said. “My heart tells me there is a connection, that Our Lady and this swarm are linked in some way I do not yet comprehend. Until I know more I shall tell the Scorpions nothing; better to risk mild ire than to let our secrets slip out of hand.”

The lowest member of the council nodded in frank approval. “Well said, m’lady,” he noted. “When all hope rests on a thread, best not to give anybody the chance to pull too hard.”

“And what have you to report, Spymaster?” Abram asked. On the surface, Laborer Bill was the antithesis of the knight in shining armor. Crude, ugly, dirty and – heresy piled upon heresy – a freeborn Nova Cat of the lowest caste, be barely registered on any warrior’s radar. Which suited Bill just fine, thank you very much. His status gave him secrecy, and as master of Abram’s intelligence network secrecy was the name of the game.

Bill stirred and smirked. “The Smoke Jaguars remain blind and stupid,” he reported. “They always had trouble seeing past their muzzles in the best of times. Right now they’re only seeing what I _want_ them to see. Wolf, now Wolf might be a problem down the road: they’re learning a lot quicker than I’d expected. Perhaps their pups in the Inner Sphere are giving them lessons in being sneaky, eh? For now, m’lord, the secret remains safe.”

“Good,” Abram said. Now for the last. “Severen,” he said to the youngest member of the council. The newly-hatched bloodnamed warrior jumped a little at the Khan’s attention, composed himself quickly and looked down at his notes.

“Yes, the simulations my lord proposed have been distributed to all the true knights, and simplified versions are being worked on by the entire touman as one. The current explanation is that we are developing war games for a return to the Inner Sphere.” Severen looked up. “I do have a question, my lord,” he said, tapping the papers. “Our evacuation plans only take the civilian population into account. What of the touman?”

Ah, yes. That. Abram wasn’t at all surprised Severen had noticed that. While still a bit green, he had proved himself astute on matters of war. Abram sighed and stood to address the council. “We all believe that Our Lady will request our presence soon enough, and we will go and do honor to her and her Hill,” he said. “None of us, I hope, are under any illusion that our fellow Clans will let us go willingly. They will reject our requests, and if we press they will fight us.

“If that is how Our Lady wills it to be, then so be it. Our dependents, our repositories and our heritage must be protected when it comes to a fight. That is the oath, quineg? To protect the innocent? When the time comes for hegira only the part of the touman necessary to guard them in the darkness will go with them.” Abram cast his gaze around the room, finding his council nodding grimly along. “The rest will stay behind to fight, and die, if needs be.”

“Selya,” chorused the council, and nothing more needed to be said.

~***~

#### I: The Hall Is Rented, The Orchestra Engaged

>   
> _“With retrospect, you can see how this carefully-balanced, teetering pile of megalomaniacs was beautifully set up, and only needed one disaster to be escalated into almost unbelievable catastrophe.”_ ~ Alan Moore, “Rolling Commentary” (2003)

~**~

**New Avalon, Federated Suns**  
 **11 July 3022**

Hanse Davion raised an eyebrow. “Antallos?” he said.

Quintus Allard shrugged helplessly. “It’s the one piece of the puzzle that we can get our hands on,” he replied.

“You want me to send a combat team to _Antallos_ , light years away from our borders with no good safe havens, on a hunch.”

“I know it sounds crazy Hanse, believe me if I had any better data I’d be working that instead of asking for this but… I’ve spent the last year chasing ghosts. It’s not Kurita, or at least it doesn’t look like Kurita, and it isn’t Max or Katrina or Janos either. The only solid evidence we have is this lostech find on Antallos. So _yes_ , your highness,” he said with stiff formality, “I’m asking you to send a force to Port Krin to see if they can’t find more of this lostech and maybe even find the source.”

“Maybe it’s aliens,” Davion said. Allard suddenly tightened his grip on his files and carefully avoided the prince’s eye. “Oh come on!” Davion exclaimed. “I was joking for God’s sake! You can’t tell me you actually _believe-_ ”

“Your highness,” Allard said quietly. “Something is going on just outside my field of view. This mystery lostech suddenly showing up on our borders, these Wolf’s Dragoons deserters hunting pirates, an impossible jumpship raiding New Avalon! I don’t know what it is. Maybe it _is_ aliens, or it could be Kerensky’s army, or hell it could be the Immortal Warrior and Foxy’s Magic Kingdom teaming up to fight the forces of darkness! I don’t know, I don’t have the resources to know and it’s starting to drive me a little crazy.”

~**~

**Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth**  
 **15 July 3022**

Melissa Steiner carefully placed yet another thumbtack into her Great Wall Of Truth. Her intelligence assets said that the Outsiders were starting to gather forces near the Outworlds-Combine border. She wasn’t sure for what yet, but it was the best explanation she could come up with. The Outsiders were going to make their move. Which to be totally honest she had no idea what that move was going to be, but it was going to be something _totally cool_. Of that Melissa had no doubts.

It was too bad that she wouldn’t be able to see it in person. Her mother would rather hand Aldo Lestrade the throne on a silver platter then let her darling daughter (and to be fair, designated heir) cross the breadth of the Draconis Combine to _maybe_ meet aliens. Melissa grumbled a little at the unfairness of her mother, the Combine and the Universe in general.

~**~

**Luthien, Draconis Combine**  
 **8 October 3022**

Takashi Kurita held up a hand, and the babble of the daily briefing faded away. “Am I given to understand that the Davions are preparing to send forces sneaking around the edge of Tabayama Prefecture, and you are allowing this?”

The ISF agent assigned to handle the briefing (the much more formidable Subhash Indrahar away from Luthien) nodded with what he hoped was the right amount of reserve. “That is correct, Coordinator-dono. Our agents report that Davion intends to send a combat team to the planet Antallos.”

“Interesting,” Takashi mused. “It seems the Fox wishes to gain more of this interesting lostech for himself.”

“So it would seem, Coordinator-dono.”

“Well,” the Dragon said with grim cheer, “we cannot allow the Federated Suns to wander around our frontiers unescorted. The poor things might get lost.” None of the men in the room chuckled, though a few allowed tight expressions that might’ve been smiles at the Coordinator’s joke. “Warlord Samsonov,” Takeshi commanded, “task one of your units to arrive at Antallos as quickly as possible. If Davion wishes to take more of this lostech then make sure he knows the risks of stealing from the Dragon’s hoard.”

Samsonov bowed deeply. “It shall be done, Coordinator-dono.”

~**~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **1 November 3022**

“Where in hell _are_ they?”

~***~

#### 0: Ignition

> _“First a spark / Then a flame / Now a fire / We explode / Into the darkest of nights / Disconnect / Cut the cord / Lines are dead / Now they'll know / With everything comes a price…”_ ~ Rise Against, “Elective Amnesia” (2008)


	12. The Fenpire Strikes Back

### Antallos, 8 November 3022

> _“I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form.”_ ~ Garrett P. Serviss,  Edison’s Conquest of Mars(1898)

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“Hello, and welcome to the History of the Periphery, episode 204: ‘Aliens from the Outer Darkness.’ Last week, we covered the slow beginnings of the Accelerando, as news and rumors of a lost civilization in the Gernsback Expanse slowly trickled out. Today it’s November the eighth, 3022 and the Accelerando is going to kick into high gear as the Gernsback Expanse makes its first public moves in the invasion of Antallos.

Antallos had a long and storied history as a pirate world long before the Fen arrived. Originally founded in 2674 by the Star League, this distant outpost was intended to be a neutral port of call for traders working along the anti-spinward edge of the Periphery. At first it was a huge success, attracting thousands out to what the planners hoped would be a brave new world on the edge of known space. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on which side of the divide you sit on, within a hundred years the Star League would be dead, and all the dreams of prosperity would go with it. The planet was sacked by multiple armies during the Succession Wars; when the dust finally cleared the only inhabitants were either simply too poor to up stakes and take one of the increasingly rare jumpships back to civilization, or were people looking for a good place to hide.

With the loss of the Star League control of Antallos went to whoever was strong enough to take the planet’s last remaining starport, Port Krin, and here the matter would sit for the next three centuries…

(…) We’ve already covered the story of Tellus and the miracle material handwavium, so suffice to say that both discoveries were a really big deal. Only small amounts of the material leaked from the Gernsback Expanse, but they and the primitive overtechnology they were attached to got to the Successor States and everybody who saw it could only think one thing: I want more. They didn’t know what it was, where it came from (aside from Antallos, of course) and why it existed in the first place, but holy cow. If small samples could do this, what could an entire industry based on it do?

Everybody knew Antallos was a pirate-ridden pesthole, and the lords of the Inner Sphere knew perfectly well that pirates were easily bought and sold. So the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns sent men to Antallos on a shopping trip. You know, see the sights, buy some trinkets. Antallos was right on their borders, or close enough for jazz anyway, and there was no way in hell that they were going to share. What Takeshi Kurita and Hanse Davion thought they were getting into is unrecorded, or if it was recorded it was somewhere historians couldn’t get to it…

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **3 November 3022**

Port Krin’s space-traffic control center was one of the better, if duller, jobs to be found on Antallos. The air-traffic guys at the spaceport had more work to do on average, as dropships and the occasional ASF flew in and out on a semi-regular basis. Meanwhile the space-traffic office kept an eye on the jump points with what little observation gear they had to hand. Again, not much really changed, the era of warships had been dead for a long time and jumpships tended to hold nice, stable positions while dropships did all the work. So, log who jumps in where, keep a weather eye on the major pirate points just in case, get paid and go home. Easy enough work.

Though the last couple years had been something of a change in the ever-constant doldrums. Two years ago the Coordinator paid off a pretty impressive fleet of jumpers and they vanished over the edge of the world. Ever since the Coordinator his own self would call the space-traffic office once a day, asking for word on his missing jumpships.

Then one day the fun stopped.

Hakim was senior operator when everything went sideways. The day had been like any other, no traffic to speak of (the whole thing about the Coordinator and the missing jumpships had gotten around, and so even the thin trickle of traffic started to dry up) and not much to do except watch the scopes with one eye and porn vid with the other. The Coordinator called, got his answer and then stopped bothering STC, so Hakim figured that was the last bit of excitement he’d have to deal with that day.

Suddenly, the event monitors began to flash. Ancient Star League instruments picked up the emergence signature of a whole bunch of jumpships at the zenith point. Hakim killed his entertainment feed and moved to examine the signatures. Lightspeed lag meant that the ships had likely secured from jump and were already undocking for a landing, so he waited for a message from whoever was commanding for notation in the log. A minute later, the event monitors flashed again, this time indicating an emergence at the nadir point. Confused, Hakim ran the system through a quick diagnostic.

Everything looked green, so Hakim checked the readings. Another large group of jumpships, probably enough to make up a decent-sized ground force, jumped in at nadir. No doubt messages would be incoming, so Hakim turned on the receiver and waited.

It didn’t take long. The first message came from zenith, transmitted almost immediately after emergence. In the holotank was a weathered old man of Asian heritage, who looked into the camera with a combination of steely resolve and indifference. “ _I am Tai-sa Ulysses Kurita, commanding the Sixth Pesht Regulars of the Draconis Combine,_ ” the man said. “ _We are bound for the city of Port Krin, to discuss specific trade relations with…_ Coordinator _Vorax._ ”

Hakim blinked. The Combine was sending a regiment to discuss trade with Vorax? He’d heard rumors – they’d all heard rumors – about some sort of ET lostech bullshit the Coordinator’s goons had found out there somewhere, but damn.

Then the message from nadir came in and Hakim could feel his stomach sinking. This time the face in the tank was younger, more middle-aged and well-fed with an eye full of amiable bluster. “ _This is Colonel Abraham Hansen of the Davion Light Guard,_ ” the new message boomed. “ _We’re here to talk with Coordinator Vorax about his interesting new toys._ ”

“Oh, son of a _bitch_.” Hakim said to no one in particular.

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“The fifth and final players in this little drama arrived as inconspicuously as possible. Instead of jumping into the standard points like most new arrivals, or using one of the Antallosian pirate points like… well, like pirates, the XCOM armada decided that they were going to be clever. Fen scouts had already mapped the system very well and as it turned out, the system’s second planet was roughly in conjunction with Antallos. By using the second planet’s pirate point XCOM could get into a strike position, hiding the jump signature behind the planet and while the transit time wasn’t ideal it was better than trying for the outer edge of the jump limit.

On November 8th, 3022, a flotilla of seven Sphere-standard jumpships along with a small number of less-recognizable support craft jumped into the pirate point and prepared for war. At about the same time the Combine and Suns forces were just over a day from slipping into orbit around Antallos. The left the Fen commanders in something of a pickle. The original plan had been essentially a large-scale raid: get in, hit Port Krin and hold it just long enough to grab Vorax and all his files, then bug out in the general confusion. Vorax secured, the information secured and the Fen can slip back into the mist without anyone the wiser.

With Successor State forces already on site and insulting each other, the situation went from a nice simple smash-and-grab to something a good deal more complicated. The Combine and Suns armies were pretty obviously angling for the same information as the Fen, and they seemed perfectly happy to shoot up anyone who got in their way, especially each other. With agents already in place the Fen could probably grab Vorax, but extracting him and his files from a Port Krin under siege by professional mechwarriors would be a great deal trickier. Not to mention engaging forces from the Inner Sphere would potentially screw up all the Thinker plans back home.

What to do, what to do.

Aboard the XCOM fleet a hasty conference was called to discuss the question: should XCOM try and accomplish the main objective, or should they overshoot orders and simply secure Port Krin?”

~***~

**XCOM 1st Expeditionary Command, Antallos System**  
 **8 November 3022**

“Gentlemen,” General Rocha said quietly. “I assume you’re bothering me for a reason?” 

“Yes sir, we’ve got a golden opportunity here and we need to take it.”

“You mind explaining that, Agent Kurita? As far as I can see we’ve got a serious hassle on our hands, not an opportunity. As it stands we’re going to be hard-pressed to make the raid work with Successor State forces on the scene.”

“That’s what I mean, General. We don’t just raid, we take the city.”

Rocha paused, carefully took his reading glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “You want us to _take_ Port Krin. Our forces are built around a lightning raid, Agent. We’re not equipped to handle a long-term siege.”

“Yet,” the skinny black-haired kid on the holoscreen said. Rocha was an Earth boy born and bred, and he always had trouble with some of the more esoteric things going on with the Fen. Like, for example, androids built on dead fictional characters. “We don’t have to hold out forever, just thirty days.” Captain Lamperouge continued, “ _Megaroad_ will be here by that point, and that solves the immediate supply problem. If we’re still besieged then we can retreat to _Megaroad_ and escape without issue. But I don’t see that happening.”

“You don’t.”

“No, General,” Lamperouge shook his head. “The forces are too small in number for an extended siege. _We_ can do it because we’ve got inside men already placed and ready to go. If we can secure the key points - the inner city, the spaceport, power stations - then we can hold the line long enough to make it a fait accompli.”

“What happens if they team up?” Rocha asked.

“Never happen,” Captain Harris said. “Davion and Kurita hate each other, they’ve hated each other for _hundreds_ of years. As long as we don’t make any threatening moves towards them they’ll play it safe and shoot at each other.”

Rocha leaned back in his chair. “Take the city… if we screw this up there’ll be hell to pay.”

“But if we succeed,” Kurita said, “it’s an incredible show of force. And if we end up fighting scavengers then that’s solid gold goodwill.”

“Exactly,” Harris added. “If we’re not just raiding it like pirates but holding and defending the city, it shows that we’re not just some bunch of jokers out for ourselves.”

“General,” Lamperouge said forcefully. “We can do this. _I_ can do this. You might say it’s my thing. I’ve pulled rabbits out of my hat a thousand times before, this is no different.”

Rocha turned the idea over in his mind for a long moment, then sighed. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll probably all get court-martialed and cashiered for this, but you make a persuasive argument gentlemen. Get your plan ready to brief the commanders. We move ASAP.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“The decision made, XCOM moved with the combination of rapid reaction and lack of self-regard that made them legendary among military historians everywhere. The fastest ships took off at twenty gees, just fast enough to get into orbit and down on the surface ahead of the incoming Suns and Combine armies. Behind them at a more leisurely pace of four gees came the bulk of the XCOM forces, mostly rebuilt and repurposed pirate gear along with the Foreign Legion’s command post. Their purpose was to make a statement of intent, that Port Krin was under new management, and if everything went wrong to provide the forward teams a chance to withdraw under cover.

While the fleet moved, General Rocha sent a message to the Special Circumstances team already in place in the city, letting them know they had just about twenty-four hours before XCOM came a-knocking. Special Circumstances had been on Antallos for almost a year and a half at that point, waiting for the day. Now that the day was here, they exploded into action, sending messages out to their contacts and getting ready to storm the castle.

By this time news had spread that forces from both the Kuritas and the Davions were inbound, and the mood was… tense is underplaying it and panic is overplaying it. Let’s say that the locals were expecting the angry fists of the Lords to come down and destroy large sections of the city, and there was a significant movement of people outwards. Nobody really cared where they were going, just that they were getting away from the oncoming battle. The morning of November 9th, 3022 a good fifty thousand people had already fled Port Krin with everything they could carry, and the rest of the city looked to the western horizon, waiting for the signs of Inner Sphere dropships.

The first sign that the world was about to change that day came, not from the west, but the east…”

~***~

**XCOM Dropship** _**Leopard** _ **, 500m above the Talisea, Antallos**  
 **9 November 3022**

“Target in fifty seconds, all hands stand by for combat drop.”

The dropship swung in low, just beneath the normal ATC radar on the far side of the city from the spaceport. The operation called for perfect timing, even the slightest thing off-schedule in the first thrity seconds could get out of hand faster than the thinkers could predict otherwise.

Down in the belly of the beast the droptroopers checked their gear one last time. Their job was to secure the vital bits of the spaceport, or at least the ones air cover didn’t blow up. Each one was well-trained and as well-briefed as Special Circumstances could arrange.

“Thirty seconds to the city. Beginning thunder run.” The _Leopard_ dropped even lower. This time the purpose wasn’t to evade but to surprise and intimidate. Dropships didn’t fly low and slow over populated areas for obvious reasons, but a Fen-built dropper could pull stunts Spheroid pilots could only dream of.

_~***~_

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **9 November 3022**

All over the city groups of men and women dropped what they were doing and ran for specialized bunkers. Set up over the last year plus, these bunkers contained guns, radios and other accessories for the stylish revolutionary. To the east came a low rumbling noise, and over the Port Krin Resistance’s radios music began to play, four voices blended into one magnificent whole:

> _I want it all!_  
>  _I want it all!_  
>  _I want it all!_  
>  _And I want it now!_

~***~

In a spy’s world there’s little room for mistakes. Forgetting little things like informing a neutral third party that you’re invading a city right in front of them could be seen as a hostile move if they aren’t forewarned.

“Hey Michael,” Gretchen said casually as Freddie Mercury’s voice blared through the hideout’s sound system. “Did you remember to tell Comstar we had guests coming?”

Michael looked up and said, very carefully, “No, I thought _you_ were supposed to do that.”

~***~

Farnham didn’t know what precisely was wrong, but he knew something had just gone sideways the second Gretchen threw him into a battered old flatbed truck and took off at very unsafe speeds. It was a damn good thing that the ancient groundcar was was stolen at least once in his estimation, considering that Gretchen drove like a madwoman. The truck drifted around a corner and careened down an alley meant for smaller vehicles. Farnham winced as the bed caught on something and ripped off with a terrible screeching sound and a flurry of assorted garbage. Gretchen ignored it as well as she could, pulling what was left of the truck through another heart-rending turn, cursing all the while.

“Hold the wheel, goddammit!” she yelled. “I need to get comms up and running.” Farnham hastily grabbed the wheel, yanking sharply to the left to avoid nailing a stall. “Good, now hold her steady, we’re heading to the Comstar station.”

“We’re what!?” Farnham yelled over the sound of wind, engine and bewildered/terrified pedestrians.

“Need to talk to the Precentor. You just need to watch my back while I’m in there, just in case they get froggy.” One of the things Farnham’s time with Gretchen had taught him was that the blonde was ruthless, not in a pirate or merc sort of way but like a hungry wolf; once she had a goal in her jaws she wouldn’t let go for love nor money. “Right,” she said, taking the wheel back from him. “Not much longer now. Couple more minutes and it all begins.”

“What begins?” Farnham asked.

“Everything,” she smiled.

Six minutes later the truck slid to a stop on the well-groomed street in the old quarter, right outside the Comstar compound. The pair left the engine running and dashed through the gates. Farnham could hear a faint rumble to the east, like thunder with a strange electronic component to it. “Song change,” Gretchen said, freezing in place. “I want it all,” she chanted softly, looking roughly towards the Talisea. “I want it all, I want it all and I want it _now!_ ”

On the last syllable, a huge blocky shape that Farnham had just enough time to resolve as a Leopard dropship flew alarmingly low over the city, followed closely by a noise combining a fusion rocket with a broken theremin that drowned out all other conversation. Farnham ducked instinctively, hands pressed to his ears. As he looked up, he could see that the Leopard was joined by a squadron of antique aerofighters and ASFs, all falling from the sky and converging on the spaceport to the west. The port’s radomes were barely visible from this distance, spots of fire and smoke blooming from them.

Turning around, Farnham saw the same feral smile on Gretchen’s face he’d seen when the fight started in Hanrahan’s the day they met. “Come on,” she said, “let’s go speak to the talking heads.”

~***~

Adept Jozefo Thomas looked at the two probable vagrants standing in the doorway in the wake of the buzzing. “Pardon me, Adept, is the Precentor available?” the man asked.

“Ah, yes,” Thomas temporized. “Though he is a busy man, do you have an appointment? I’m sure you understand, with the crisis he can’t just drop everything.”

“No appointment,” the man said while his companion ground her teeth slowly. “But I’m sure the Precentor would like to see us, we have vital information about the situation.”

Thomas raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’m sure you do,” he said neutrally. “However, without an appointment I doubt the Precentor will be able to see you. The crisis, you understand. Now, if you’d like to make an appointment for next Tuesday–”

“Listen, Wimpy,” the woman snarled. “You get back in there and tell him the _Fenspacers_ are here, and they want to talk. Or you can call your goons out, but I take no responsibility for what happens next, got me?”

“Wimpy?” Farnham asked under his breath as the adept backed out and vanished into the mass of back rooms.

“Long story,” Gretchen said, “Long, _long_ story and not one we have time for.” she added as the adept scrambled out.

“Ah, yes, please come with me,” he said hastily. “Precentor MacLeod will be happy to see you.”

The adept led them to a small and Spartan office in the far corner of the compound, where two men wearing the white Comstar robes looked over a series of hard copy maps. The elder of the two men looked up as Gretchen and Farnham entered the room. “Precentor, the Fenspacers,” the adept said hastily and abandoned the room.

Toshiro MacLeod gave the two claimed-Fenspacers a quick once-over. Neither seemed to be the sort of technologically advanced beings he had expected, dressed in smudged and torn denim. “A pleasure to finally meet you,” he said easily. “How may I be of assistance?”

“This is our official notice,” Gretchen said. “As of right now we’re taking over management of Port Krin.” Farnham started at this bombshell, but MacLeod merely raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed,” he said. “Well, if your compatriots are as pleasant to look at as you my dear, it will be a nice change of pace.” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed and Farnham took an involuntary step to the side. “I take it Coordinator Vorax’s get-rich-quick scheme failed, then?”

“You could say that,” Gretchen said.

“Well then,” MacLeod replied with a quiet smile. “Let me be the first to welcome your people back to civilization. I do hope we can be good friends.” he added, offering his hand.

Gretchen blinked, and shook. “Not really my department, Precentor,” she said. “But I can offer this advice.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t make us angry.” the blonde said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, the sound of distant thunder shaking the walls. “You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“In the middle of all this excitement, the Successor State regiments landed outside the city without much in the way of a challenge. Thanks to the moves XCOM pulled, everybody with a working radar left had almost completely forgotten about them.

The two regiments weren’t the cream of their respective armies, rather fairly inoffensive middle-of-the-road units that had the distinction of being the closest units to Antallos when it became clear that the other side was making a move in that direction. The Sixth Pesht Regulars were nominally a training unit with some experience in pirate-busting action, while the Davion Light Guard was more or less what it said on the label: a company of relatively light forces intended for scouting areas before heavier units marched in. The opposing commanders had fairly simple instructions: find out what Vorax knows, how he knew it, and acquire more samples of this mystery lostech as well as where it came from. If you can bribe him, great. If not, well, that’s why you’re traveling with battlemechs. In any case, grill Vorax until he talks.

That the Combine and the Suns jumped into the system from opposite sides within a few minutes of each other is, in my opinion at least, proof that a higher power exists and that it thinks it has a sense of humor. The two sides were aware of each other just as soon as the signals crossed Port Krin, and they traded barbs the entire four day ride from the jump points down to the surface. By day three, both commanders had decided that enough was enough, if these dastardly dogs were going to continue being impudent then there’d be a reckoning on the surface. Let the winner take the lostech spoils.

The Kuritas and Davions landed thirty kilometers west of Port Krin’s spaceport. While both regiments would’ve preferred landing at a furnished port, the constant jockeying for position meant a more distant landing was the safer option. Once unloaded, the mechs charged into the fight, looking forward to shooting some hated foes because after four days of constant insults everybody involved was just looking to hurt some bastards…

(…) Things were getting a little hairy for the Light Guard when forward spotters noticed something happening inside Port Krin. For the first time in, well, ever, the flag over the governor’s palace was going down. The city had changed hands multiple times over the centuries, going from one pirate lord to another as they backstabbed their way to power and then were backstabbed in turn, but no one had ever thought to swap the planetary flag out. But now, it seemed that whoever was running the show in the city had decided a need for dramatic change. The old League-era flag – an ugly thing that looked like somebody had randomly pasted polygons on a flat background – went down and the Spaceship and Sun of Fenspace went up in its place. The fighting outside the city actually quieted down a little as both sides took in this unprecedented development. About than holocomms all over the planet went online and the new lords of Port Krin made themselves known to the galaxy…”

~***~

“This is a message for the people of Antallos:

“We are XCOM. Two years ago the ruler of Port Krin assembled an army to attack and conquer our home system. That army failed. XCOM forces have been dispatched to present our grievances to the Port Krin government and seek recompense for damages. This we have done: Port Krin is now under our jurisdiction. Any assault on the city will be considered an assault on XCOM and by association an attack on the United Nations and Fenspace Convention.

“To the people of Antallos, we have no further quarrel with you or your leaders. No Antallosian cities will be attacked without direct provocation. We seek nothing more than peaceful coexistence.

“To agents of the Successor States, those interested in expanding relations with the United Nations and Fenspace Convention will be welcomed once the situation in Port Krin has stabilized.

“To those who see an opportunity within this chaos, we urge you to consider peace over war. Do not test us, _you will fail_.”

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“This declaration of purpose was meant well. The idea was to present the lightning occupation of Port Krin as a done deal, that the change in management was effectively over – which to be fair it was: Special Circumstances teams had Vorax in custody a good twenty minutes after XCOM first blew in from over the water. Far as XCOM was concerned, the immediate crisis of revolution in Port Krin was over, and now everybody should sit tight and just let the new world order settle before getting down to business.

And this actually worked, a little anyway. The Successor State forces had no idea who the hell XCOM, the Fenspace Convention or the United Nations were but it was pretty obvious to Colonels Kurita and Hansen that the people responsible for the seizure of Port Krin were also the people responsible for all the interesting lostech that brought them to Antallos in the first place. Attacking was a possibility, for all XCOM’s deftness in the coup de main much of the city wasn’t properly guarded for the first day or so after the announcement. But then the Inner Sphere regiments found themselves stymied by their traditional foe: each other. Had it been just the Sixth Pesht Regulars, or just the Davion Light Guards out there, it was likely that they might try an offensive. Better to get what they wanted from the source, after all. But with both regiments standing there within shooting range of each other, the situation was different. If one regiment advanced on the city and the other didn’t, then the Fen might call on the non-advancing regiment as allies to help in the defense, cementing an alliance with the mysterious Periphery power. Both regiments could’ve dismantled the defenses had they worked together, but it’d be another twenty-five years give or take before things got so out of hand that Davion and Kurita units would work together willingly.

Unable to handle the situation in the traditional ways, both regimental commanders fell back to the default position of doing nothing. Instead of advancing on the city, they fortified their landing zones and took the occasional pot-shot at each other, allowing XCOM the time they needed to establish themselves inside Port Krin. And it was a good thing, too, because as soon as the announcement went planetwide all sorts of unsavory types started boiling out from under rocks.

These were opportunists, for the most part. Pirate bands who were camping in the outback because they’d been blacklisted from the Krin spaceport, or petty warlords from the scattering of other cities on Antallos who saw the sudden reversal of fortune for Vorax as a sign. Most of these forces came in in penny packets, a lance here, a platoon of infantry there, making probing attacks against the edges of the city. Foreign Legion mechwarriors under the command of Colonel Burgess Hale and Captain Alex Harris handled the situation on the ground while XCOM air forces swept ASFs from the skies.

The biggest threat of the first few days of the occupation came from a pirate group known as the Teeth, for reasons that nobody ever managed to figure out later. The Teeth had gotten on Port Krin’s bad list at some point and were camped a hundred kilometers north of the city when XCOM told the world that Vorax was no longer in charge. Sensing a possible change in fortune, the Teeth saddled up and drove three mech lances south to the edge of the city. As bad luck would have it, the northern edge of Port Krin was where a sizeable refugee camp stood, all the people who feared attacks in the vicinity of the spaceport having fled there. The stage was set for an impressive massacre even by Spheroid standards, and for the moment the only thing standing between the Teeth, the refugees and the city was the People’s Liberation Army First Battlemech Brigade…”

~***~

**North of Port Krin, Antallos**  
 **11 November 3022**

Captain Lian Ch’ien crouched in _Crimson Typhoon_ ’s cockpit and watched his screens. The enemy mechwarriors were on the move, and it was his job to distract them long enough for the precious few artillery XCOM had brought along to get into position to eliminate them. The frankenmech wobbled a little – a flaw of the cobbled-together design, the legs were a couple centimeters off balance.

“ _Crimson Typhoon_ to base,” he said. “I have two mechs in the vanguard, both assaults, along with armored transports. Request permission to engage.” The two assault mechs in Ch’ien’s sights appeared to be Awesomes, both scuffed and showing signs of poor maintenance. _Crimson Typhoon_ itself was maybe barely classed as an assault, and the chances of succeeding with an attack was poor at best.

But Lian Ch’ien had been at Qingdao, and he knew better than most that poor chances were still better than zero chances. His rockets and cannonfire had helped put down the mechs that made up _Crimson Typhoon_ now, after all.

“Typhoon, you are cleared to engage.” The base replied. “Don’t take any dumb risks and good hunting.”

“Acknowledged, base,” Ch’ien said. “ _Crimson Typhoon_ is engaging the enemy.”

~***~

Fred the Mechwarrior (he had a proper name once, but it had been a long time and a dozen languages ago, so everybody in the Teeth just called him “Fred”) brought his Awesome up as a mech he’d never seen before stepped out of cover and charged right at him. The thing was big, a large heavy or junior assault, painted bright red and armed with a pair of wicked arm-mounted autocannons. His targeting computer stuttered trying to figure the damn thing out and he turned off the audio feed with an irritated flick.

The big ugly frankenmech charged right into Fred’s field of fire, so he let him have it. His PPC lashed out, crossing the distance in a blink of an eye and slamming into the frankenmech’s left shoulder. The mech twitched and the shot left an ugly black mark, but the frankenmech continued onwards. Fred let loose another shot, only to watch the frankenmech duck under the shot (son of a bitch cheap targeting computer) and bob upwards like a pro boxer.

Fred fired his lasers, but they only managed to burn the other mech’s paint. The frankenmech got to just within point-blank range and Fred had the sudden horrible sensation that the other pilot was going to just ram him or jam those autocannon right up against the canopy and let go, when the frankenmech hit it’s jump jets. The ugly red contraption arced up, over Fred’s Awesome like it was some kind of goddamned steeplechase.

Fred got angry. That this weirdo in his frankenmech was tough was one thing. Tough opponents were always welcome in the mechwarrior business. But that this guy would treat him like some sort of obstacle was just going too damn far! He swiveled around on the wait joint, intending to backshoot the bastard when he suddenly noticed a weird protrusion on the frankenmech’s back.

Funny, he thought, that looks like another arm. Who ever heard of a mech with three arm—

~***~

Ch’ien glanced at his rearward monitors. The Awesome’s cockpit had been quite ventilated by his heavy autocannon. Jumping into position like that… well, it had been a reckless decision on his part. But Ch’ien was a veteran of Qingdao and a mechwarrior to boot, so a certain recklessness was to be expected.

“Target one down,” he reported. “Tagging target two for artillery fire.” A tracking laser popped out of Crimson Typhoon’s sensor head and spun around, finding the other Awesome and pinging it. A series of flashes came from the edge of the city as XCOM’s artillery recognized the laser and launched their counterstrike.

A few seconds later the second Awesome and its infantry backup died in a series of massive explosions.

~***~

_Transcript of “The History of the Periphery” podcast by Gwen Lafarge (Internet distribution, 3066):_

“…And then it was all over. The Teeth broken against the Chinese defenses, more substantial pirate forces pulled back to see what this mysterious XCOM would do next. A few of the stupider ones sent packets up against the Kurita and Davion regiments to the west, in search of loot or a good fight or who knows what. The ones who came back from that good idea returned in beat-up battlemechs or on foot. Small assaults against Port Krin kept up, never more than one lance at a time, for the remainder of November. Through judicious rationing of artillery and Fen being clever tactics like the classic ‘rise from your grave’ maneuver, XCOM kept up the illusion of overwhelming force until reinforcements arrived.

And when reinforcements arrived, boy did they ever arrive. The _GCS Megaroad_ was originally intended to haul colonists around the stars around Sol in town-sized lots. It first saw duty as a command post for the famous Crazy Eddie Squadron, Fenspace’s attempt at ambushing Vorax’s armada at the beginning of the war. After that fell through, the _Megaroad_ was seconded to XCOM as a supply ship and general operations depot. Traveling via subspace drive, the ship left months before the main force but arrived a month afterwards.

If the defense of Port Kin had impressed Inner Sphere observers, the sheer size of the _Megaroad_ , easily visible with a discernible shape from Antallos’s surface, impressed them a whole hell of a lot more. Whoever or whatever the new management in Krin was, it became clear that a new and surprisingly powerful player was on the scene in the Periphery. The bulk of the _Megaroad_ hanging in orbit said, quite plainly, that the Fen were here and they were here to stay.”


	13. Interlude: The New Kids on the Block

### Inner Sphere, 3022 – 3023

> _They came from out of nowhere, established themselves on the edge of the Inner Sphere and dared anybody to do something about it. If nothing else, I admire the guts it took to do that.”_ ~ Jamie Wolf (3032)

~***~

**Outskirts of Port Krin, Antallos  
9 November 3022**

She had to admit, the new colors were growing on her.

Natalie Fischer’s Warhammer stomped through the glorified shanties of Port Krin’s suburbs, resplendent in gleaming white with navy-blue accents. By the estimation of an ex-independent operator like Natalie it wasn’t a color scheme suitable for a mech with a _real_ job. If anything it was suited for the sort of overfed nobles with cushy posts standing in front of palaces.

But—and this was the key thing—holy _god_ did she look good in it. Natalie eased the throttle a little as houses and shacks started giving way to more and more desert. Behind her, the rest of her old lance followed suit. “Strike One, this is Strike Two,” she radioed. “We’re almost to the waypoint, nothing on visual.”

“Understood, Strike Two,” replied Burgess Hale, who was leading _his_ mechs several miles away on a similar mission. “Same here, keep us posted.”

“Roger,” Natalie said, arming her weapons. Intelligence said the Fedrats and the Snakes were busy killing each other in this sector, and if they made any moves towards the city then it was the job of the Fen Foreign Legion to turn them elsewhere. Not a job she was looking forward to, at all. Natalie considered herself a decent pilot, probably good enough to take on House units one-on-one but the big states had the weight of numbers behind them. Here she had her lance and Hale’s lance (maybe, assuming they didn’t get chewed up alongside her). Not great odds.

“Okay, we’re at the waypoint,” she said. “Still no sign of opposition. Everybody keep your eyes peeled.” A series of acknowledgments chimed as the lance reported in. “Popping drone.” One of the hundred tiny innovations the new employers had added to her mech, the drone replaced one of her SRM tubes with a recon unit that was almost invisible to mech scanners and would watch the battlefield with radar, lidar, MAD, probably psychic powers for all Natalie knew. The thing was insanely useful and she sometimes wondered how she’d ever managed to fight without one.

The drone reached apogee, stopped in midair and unfolded its sensor array. Natalie watched intently as the first sweep ran over her screens. “No hostiles in range, Strike One,” she reported. “I think we’re clear for the moment.”

“Copy that,” Hale came back. “Stay sharp, Robocop.”

“Eat me, Hale.” Natalie ground out. She might’ve gone on further just to annoy the senior mechwarrior except for the sudden blare of alarms from the drone and Oksana’s shout:

“Positive contact, seven o’clock!”

The lance whirled as one to face the sudden target. “Sonouva, how did they get behind us?!” Natalie demanded. Her screens showed no new mechs on the horizon or stepping out from behind the rocks and hills. “Come on, show yourself asshole.” A glint of non-rusty metal caught her eye. A large groundcar was parked next to an ancient permacrete blockhouse. “Give me an ID, people.”

“Looks like Comstar” Ogoonu said. “I can see the logo from here. I think it might be CSN.”

Natalie sighed. “Okay, stand down Strike Two. Let’s not shoot the nice crazy priest-reporters. Back to business.”

“Strike Two, report.” Hale said over the radio.

“False alarm, Hale,” she replied. “Just a Comstar News truck.”

“Really?” Hale sounded bemused. “Wonder who they pissed off to get assigned here.”

“I could ask them,” Natalie offered.

“Nah, I’m good. Anything else?”

“Not so you’d notice.”

“Copy that, Robocop.”

“For fuck’s sake, man...”

~***~

_Comstar News headlines, 10 November 3022:_

**MYSTERY FORCE ATTACKS, SUBDUES PIRATE WORLD**

_Periphery Unknown “Fenspace Convention” Invades Antallos, Seizes Spaceport_

BY NEAL BURROUGHS FOR COMSTAR NEWS – The city of Port Krin on the planet Antallos has long been known as a haven for the dispossessed and lawless of the anti-spinward Periphery. On the 8th of November 3022 that changed, when a military force calling itself XCOM brought the force of law and order to the pirate world for the first time in almost two centuries.

The mystery invaders arrived at Port Krin from elsewhere in the Periphery. The exact location of the world—known only as “Fenspace” at this time—is unknown, though Comstar astronomers believe it to be a lost colony from somewhere coreward of Antallos. XCOM reduced the spaceport and captured the inner quarter of Port Krin with relative ease, declaring their seizure of the city via radio shortly before sunset on the 8th.

XCOM was aided in this attack by members of the Free Krin League, a rebel cell opposed to the planet’s previous ruler Coordinator Aidan Vorax. According to sources in Port Krin FKL rebels were in contact with XCOM for several weeks before the attack began, and they played “a key role” in the capture of the inner city.

Coordinator Vorax’s current whereabouts are unknown. XCOM currently claims to have Mr. Vorax in custody, though the exact location has not been disclosed.

The XCOM invasion force arrived at the same time as forces from the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns. DCMS units were apparently on-hand to secure the port against further pirate attacks on Combine planets. AFFS forces had at press time no formal statement as to their purpose on Antallos, though sources suggest rumors of a lostech cache might have driven Federated Suns interest in the planet. The Inner Sphere forces engaged each other upon landing, leaving the city open for XCOM to take…

**SIDEBARS:**

  * Antallos: Pirate Haven of the Anti-Spinward Periphery

  * The XCOM Ultimatum

  * The Inner Sphere Reacts

  * Who Is XCOM?

  * Who Are The Fenspace Convention?

  * “United Nations:” Historical Reference May Provide Clues To The Convention’s Origins




~***~

_Excerpt from “_ _The Melissiad ” by Misha Auburn (Tharkad University Press, Tharkad, 3095):_

“The stories arriving from the Periphery were, to be perfectly fair, unbelievable, and as it turned out many including the Archon Katrina didn’t believe them. Lady Melissa however was driven to find out the truth behind these stories with the drive and impetuousness of youth and as always I, the librarian’s daughter, was swept up in her wake. To this end she purported to use her mother’s resources as her own, creating a league of informants and spies running the length and breadth of the coreward frontier that brought her all news from those distant parts of space known and unknown.

Even after I had been introduced to Lady Melissa’s ‘pet,’ the artificial intelligence she called Clara and claimed was an Outsider agent, I admit to some skepticism. Lady Melissa was intelligent beyond her years, but not what the philosophers would call _wise_. She had a tendency to jump to conclusions and then _act_ upon those conclusions as swiftly and decisively as possible. This tendency would serve her in good stead in later years, allowing her to slip the bonds of the usurper and fight against those who would try to execute her for so-called crimes against nature. In this time and place, however, her tendencies served only to get her—and frequently I as well—into trouble. No amount of parental punishment could possibly deter a spirit like Lady Melissa’s however, and her investigations continued to the chagrin of many in court who knew the broad details of her search. Most dismissed it as a child’s fancy, perhaps with a cluck of tongue implying the child of the Archon should be ‘above’ such things, or a sorrowful shake of the head at Archon Katrina’s indulgence of her daughter. When she bothered to listen to the complaints of courtiers, the Archon would smile and note that she thanked God for such an inquisitive child as Lady Melissa. Lady Melissa herself never heeded the court, though once many years later she confided to me that she ignored the jibes by virtue of being right, and that one day the court would see that.

It is with this in mind that I come to the first of many great turning points in the intertwined dance that was my life with Lady Melissa. It came to pass in early summer in the Triad one day where news came from the Periphery of strangers attacking the ancient and debased world of Antallos. These strangers, called Fen, possessed both lostech and technologies unknown even to the great savants of the lost Star League. When the news reached court Lady Melissa was, perhaps, the most triumphant person on Tharkad that day…”

_Misha Auburn (3009—3075) was the boon companion of Archon Melissa I Steiner as well as unofficial court historian throughout the Outlaw Princess’s life. Her major work, the_ _ Melissiad _ _, was written off and on between the end of the Last Succession War and Ms. Auburn’s death during the War of Two Terras._

~***~

**The Triad, Tharkad  
13 November 3022**

A small group of nobles, soldiers and trusted advisers clustered together in the Archon’s private office, watching the latest Comstar News broadcast on the Archon’s incredibly high-resolution tactical-grade Star League holovision set that _no one_ (“this means you Melissa”) was allowed to use without her say-so. In the tank a local CSN anchor was commenting breathlessly over a reel of footage just in from the faraway planet Antallos. The footage showed a company of strange battlemechs, spindly aerospace fighters and infantry squaring off against a larger, patchier gang of pirates.

According to CSN the Periphery was, apparently, under assault by aliens.

Melissa Steiner (as Archon-Designate) and Misha Auburn (as Archon-Designate’s-best-friend) sat on one of the office’s more comfortable couches, quietly off to one side as the nominal grownups in the room watched and debated. Melissa’s eyes were glued to the H/V, her glee forming an almost tangible aura around her. Misha did her best to keep one eye on the tank and one eye on her increasingly agitated friend.

Most of the Lyran regulars regarded the film from Antallos with pained expressions, with occasional sneaking glances towards the Archon’s bountiful liquor cabinet. Simon Johnson hovered on the group’s edge, eyes taking in as much of the battlefield as the CSN cameras managed to get. Archon Katrina herself sat behind her desk, a glass of Tamar brandy at one hand, pen and paper at the other. Every few minutes she scratched out a note.

“Look at that frankenmech,” she said, drawing her advisers’ attention. “What do you make of that?”

Simon looked at the ungainly thing stalking across the tank. “Looks like somebody had a Catapult chassis and a surplus of Marauder arms,” he said. “Not sure what the point of the third arm is, though.” As he said it, the frankenmech stopped, the third arm swiveled and fired on an enemy fighting vehicle half-hidden in the dust. “Huh,” Simon finished.

“Frankenmech equals salvage,” Nondi Steiner commented. “Neobarbs?”

Katrina shook her head. “Salvage, but not neobarbs. Look at that thing.” She pointed as the shot shifted to a burly, spike-shouldered mech striding across the battleground with a gigantic ax in one hand. “ _That_ isn’t salvage, that’s new production. Has anyone seen anything like that before?”

“The ax reminds me of something Defiance Industries is working on,” one general offered. “Beyond that... no, can’t say I have.”

“Just so.” Katrina was about to say something more when the H/V was filled with something else. A great dark shape dove out of the sky and loomed over the camera, all sharp edges and smooth curves. The shape pivoted over the field, fired a handful of shots out of a nasty-looking naval autocannon and sped off.

Silence reigned in the office for a moment. “What in God’s name was _that?_ ” Nondi Steiner demanded.

“It’s a Normandy!” Every head in the office turned to regard Melissa Steiner, who sat there with a blinking did-I-do-that? expression on her face.

“And a Normandy is?” her mother prompted.

“Um,” _Dammit dammit dammit think Missy think don’t mention Clara don’t mention Clara._ “It’s something I came across in my research,” she said, feeling a little defensive. “They’re an Outsider ship, some sort of scout.”

One of Lyra’s finest generals (judging by the sheer weight of brass on his uniform) snorted in very indelicate fashion. “Archon, do we have to listen to this?”

“Considering that one day she’ll sign your pension checks,” Katrina said calmly. “I’d suggest you be still and listen to my daughter. Now, Melissa,” she said, dismissing the general and turning her full attention to Melissa. “What do _you_ think of all this?”

“I think…” Melissa stopped to gather her thoughts. “I think somebody needs to pick up that phone.”

Katrina, Misha and the rest of the room gave her baffled looks. “Hah?” Misha finally said.

Melissa leaped to her feet in triumph, a wild grin plastered on her face. “Because I fucking _called it!_ ”

“ _Melissa!_ ”

~***~

> “ _WE’RE ALL IMPERIALISTS NOW, BY JINGO AND HOO-FUCKING-RAY!”_ ~ Opening chyron,  The Chewy Gristle Commentary Hour Featuring Momo von Satan and The Cock, 11 November 3022

_Excerpt from “_ _Vigilo Confido: The History of XCOM ” by Sven Kutna (Moonstone Books, Luna, 3070):_

“XCOM had exceeded their orders, that much was clear. The original plan approved by Luckwold and the Council had Operation Dire Gift descending on Port Krin, placing Vorax into custody and then vanishing back into the dark after a short interval. Once back in space, the XCOM fleet would rendezvous with the supply ship _Megaroad_ outside the Antallos system, and from there _Megaroad_ would move into the next phase: setting up shop in high orbit of Antallos as a trading post. With Vorax gone and Port Krin in a succession crisis, the Convention would have control of the system without having to spend valuable resources maintaining an occupation.

When the time came for Dire Gift to begin the unexpected presence of Spheroid forces already in Antallos orbit forced the field commanders’ hand, or at least that was how they ex-post-facto justified it to the Council. The punitive expedition was configured to handle pirates, not declare war on the Inner Sphere, and with Davion and Kurita troops already on the surface any attempt to continue with the original plan stood a chance of starting something XCOM couldn’t finish. In the moment of crisis General Rocha decided that forgiveness was simpler than permission and agreed to take Port Krin in its entirety…

(…) In a somewhat ironic turn of events, news of Port Krin spread almost completely around the Inner Sphere before it reached the Gernsback Expanse proper. Comstar had picked up the news and transmitted it from Antallos across the galaxy. By late evening of the tenth of November reports of the invasion had reached the last A-class stations in the line and were relayed dutifully to the lower-priority stations in turn. In contrast, the XCOM fleet was reliant on interwave radio for contacting Tellus: the most ubiquitous of Fen faster-than-light communications, interwave was easy enough to retrofit into the Spheroid jumpships but it was also considerably slower than more recent advances. Until _Megaroad_ arrived with an ansible communicator Dire Gift was going to be a minimum of two days one-way communication from Fenspace.

When news of XCOM’s capture of Port Krin arrived at home, the reception was decidedly mixed. Public opinion had been strongly for the punitive expedition and the news that Dire Gift had succeeded in capturing Vorax and recovering anything the pirate lord might have had regarding Tellus’s location was greeted with celebration, particularly from those who had felt the brunt of the invasion. The news that the entire city of Port Krin had been taken and occupied was received in much more negative light. Most people in the Gernsback Expanse remembered the previous generation’s Middle Eastern Wars, and the spectre of ‘getting ground down in another grueling mess in a goddamned desert’ as one commenter put it hung over Rocha’s decision. Furthermore strong anti-imperialist currents ran through the Council, the politicians backing the Council and the public at large. One of the key things separating the XCOM alliance from the Inner Sphere was the belief that XCOM simply wouldn’t go around conquering everything they took a fancy to. Now in a single stroke—and at their galactic debut no less—Rocha had smashed that impression to rubble.

Commander Luckwold, faced with mounting criticism from the Council and the public, maintained as close to a neutral position on the matter as she could. Her regular statement ‘Commanders in the field know more about conditions there than I do two hundred light years away’ didn’t mollify anyone even though it gave a small level of deniability. In private however her language was much less diplomatic. ‘Those damned loose cannons,’ she wrote to her partner not long after the news broke, ‘have completely bollixed everything in the medium term. Now we have a new territory to look after, one we cannot back out of without looking like weaklings and moral cowards. If Rocha’s lucky he’ll die in battle over there before I can get my hands on him.’

(…) All through the close of 3022 the XCOM Council, the United Nations and SMOFcon debated how they were going to handle this surprise gift, even as new information arrived daily from the Antallos front. The eventual solution was a messy compromise that satisfied few, but was considered better than conceding defeat and slinking back into the night. As ‘a possession of an enemy nation removed from that nation’s control’ the city of Port Krin was designated a United Nations trust territory. Officially the city would be handed over to the revolutionary organizations who aided XCOM in the capture, but de facto administration would be done by the Convention until ‘a new government could be formed.’ The other city-states would be left alone for the moment—by the time _Megaroad_ arrived all attempts to take Krin had failed and the other Antallosians were settling into the new status quo. As in the original plan, orbital control would remain in Fen hands. In theory the trust territory would devolve to the new Krin government within ten years, possibly shorter, and the Council would be free of its imperial burden.

The trust plan was grudgingly accepted by the anti-imperialist bloc, who conceded it was the least-bad way out the situation XCOM had landed them in. A vocal segment of pro-imperialists also expressed dissatisfaction with the plan. This group comprised the public segment of the Patriot movement, a collection of ‘imperial pragmatists’ and ‘Spheroid realists’ who sought to engage the known galaxy on its own terms. Mostly composed of internet enthusiasts with a smattering of intellectuals providing academic cover, the Patriots advocated directly assimilating Port Krin (and by extension the other Antallosian settlements) into the Convention or a willing UN member. In 3022 the Patriot position was a minority opinion of a minority opinion within the halls of power. Very few people took the idea of direct annexation seriously, especially given the fragmented nature of Tellurian politics. ‘Edwards raised his head again,’ Luckwold wrote in 3023 as the Antallos situation settled into a fait accompli. ‘We all had a good laugh at his paranoia then binned his proposal, again. One day he’ll understand that we aren’t just going to do what he says no matter how loud he says it or how big a chorus of mynah birds he has repeating the words. Despite this setback at Port Krin, XCOM is not in the business of conquering people.’

(…) Unable to convince the Council of their plans, the Patriots would eventually form XCOM’s great _bete noire_ : the EXALT organization…”

~***~

**XCOM Field Command Center, Antallos  
14 November 3022**

“Okay, I’ve got to ask,” Kyon said. “We’ve been at this for almost a week and your uniform isn’t just clean, it’s _pressed_. How?”

“Ancient Chinese secret,” Lelouch Lamperouge said smugly. Kyon scowled.

“Bullshit, you’ve got some sort of wavetech uniform, right?”

“And what if I did?” Lelouch gestured expansively. “If I told you the secret it wouldn’t be a secret anymore. Have some _respect_ for the mysteries of life, Kyosuke.”

Kyon rolled his eyes. “You know, it’s crap like this that got you killed in the first place.”

“Yes, well I’m more resilient now. Besides, I think it keeps life interesting.”

“Thank you Laurel, Hardy,” General Rocha said from his spot at the briefing table. The two XCOM operatives moved up to join him in front of the holotank. “If we could focus on the task at hand?”

“What’s the word, General?” Kyon asked.

“Spheroid OPFOR wants to have a word,” Rocha replied. “Captain Lamperouge, you’re my aide. Agent Kurita, you’re to stand to one side and be enigmatic.”

“Do you want me to say anything?”

“No, not unless things start going south. Let’s dangle you out there and see who bites.”

Kyon nodded. “Understood.” The holotank flickered to life and the ghostly faces of two men appeared. The Suns commander was a was a white man with a natty cavalier’s goatee trying to mask his ungraceful descent into later middle age. The Combine leader on the other hand was already elderly, an old Asian man who might’ve fit in perfectly as the ancient master in a terrible old kung-fu movie.

“Ah, gentlemen,” Rocha said. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Allow me to introduce myself: I am General Bartolome Rocha, XCOM. This is my aide Captain Lamperouge and XCOM civilian oversight agent Kurita.” The Spheroids reacted to Kyon’s introduction, the Combine with a subtle glance towards the agent, the Suns with a much less subtle double-take. Kyon maintained an air of indifference cultivated through years of SOS-dan meetings.

“Colonel Abraham Hansen, AFFS,” the Davion commander replied, tearing his eyes away from Kyon.

“Tai-sa Ulysses Kurita,” the Combine officer said with a formal nod. “Congratulations on a battle well-fought, General.”

“Indeed,” Hansen said. “It was quite the feat of soldiering.”

“It had it’s moments,” Rocha replied easily. “Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to tell you about them. In the meantime, I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“And those are?” Kurita asked.

Rocha leaned forward. “Gentlemen, I wish to know your intentions towards my people and the people of Port Krin.”

Hansen smiled thinly. “I’m not sure what you mean, General Rocha,” he said. “To be honest, we don’t even know who you people are.”

Rocha made a tiny gesture and Lelouch jumped into the fray. “Let’s not beat about the bush, Colonel,” he said. “You might not know all the particulars but you know _exactly_ who we are. Two years ago, a collection of advanced technology—the sort of thing you call ‘lostech’ among other items—appeared on your radar. The two of you came here because this was the origin point and you wanted to secure the source from Port Krin’s ex-ruler. Unfortunately for you, but more for him, we got here first to express our... displeasure.”

“As Captain Lamperouge says,” Rocha added mildly. “This operation was intended to secure certain information we’d rather not leak out to the public just yet. XCOM’s duty is to protect our home and our people. So let me ask again: _what are your intentions towards my home and my people?_ ”

“I cannot speak for the Coordinator on this matter, as I am sure you understand General,” Kurita began cautiously. “It is true, my orders were to speak of lostech with this so-called Coordinator Vorax. As he appears to no longer be available, then I must report that he has fallen foul of those he robbed.” He paused, then added dryly, “Truly a shame.”

Hansen shrugged. “My people are just tourists here,” he said offhandedly. “You know, see the sights, take in some theater, have some local food, shoot some game.”

“And yet despite my failure I cannot leave this world in good conscience while Hanse Davion’s soldiers remain,” Kurita said with the same offhanded tone. “They might get lost and wander into Tabayama Prefecture like blundering oxen, or vanish into deep space. It is my civic duty as a soldier of the Combine to provide proper supervision.”

“It’s too bad we can’t leave while there’s still game to be shot!” Hansen snapped.

Rocha sighed. “Gentlemen please, calm your sphincters,” he said. “If you want to kill each other, that’s fine, but I’m going to have to insist you move further away from Port Krin and not disturb the horses when you do. Of course,” he added, “there’s another option.”

“By all means, General,” Hansen said.

“You heard our declaration, correct?” The Spheroid commanders nodded. “Mr. Vorax is no longer in play, but the Convention is taking over operations in the Port Krin region. We intend to run the city as a neutral port and we’ll be accepting delegations from the Inner Sphere nations as soon as things stabilize—no more than a month from now most likely. Now, seeing as you’re already here, if you wish to report back and assign an officer as temporary diplomatic liaison I’m willing to allow it. I’m sure having a direct line to the source is advantageous for both your leaders and neither of you wants to see us aligned with your opposite—”

“Naturally.”

“Not a chance in hell we’d let that happen.”

“Then we’re in happy agreement. I’ll let you figure out your details as you need to.”

“There’s one thing that’s been bugging me, General,” Hansen put in. Rocha paused.

“Yes?”

“Who in God’s name _are_ you people, anyway?”

Rocha looked the Suns officer in the eye. “ _We_ are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams,” he said, earning a baffled look from Hansen and a side glance from Kyon.

“You are an interesting people,” Kurita pronounced. “I look forward to our next meeting, General... cousin.” The Kurita side of the commlink blipped off.

“What he said,” Hansen said. “I’ve got my eye on you.” The AFFS link shut down, leaving the three XCOM men alone in the briefing room.

“Something to add, Agent Kurita?” Rocha said innocently.

“Not really,” Kyon replied. “Just wasn’t expecting you to pull that reference, is all.”

Rocha laughed. “What, just because I’m a filthy mundane means I can’t have appropriate interests?” he said. “I loved that movie as a kid.”

~***~

> “ _This isn’t the age of spies. This is not even the age of heroes. This is the age of_ miracles _, doctor. There’s nothing more horrifying than a miracle.”_ ~ Baron von Strucker,  Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

**Hilton Head, Terra  
18 December 3022**

The First Circuit was in council once again, and as it had been off and on for the last month the discussion focused on the mysterious new arrivals on Antallos. The latest Ultimate Priority dispatch from Precentor MacLeod had come in, this time bearing a hologram of the latest arrival in the skies over Port Krin.

“This object arrived in the system within the last several days,” Precentor ROM said to the assembled council. “It didn’t jump in at the zenith or nadir points according to MacLeod’s data. We’re assuming it made a stealth entrance like the Fenspace assault forces did, most likely a non-standard point outside the jump limit but closer to the system ecliptic.” The Precentors Explorer Corps and Martial nodded at this: the tactic was known, if considered risky outside of extreme war conditions as jumpships arrived stationary relative to the system’s primary and everything else in the system, well, wasn’t.

The object itself was somewhat unremarkable in terms of shape: a pair of flattened ovoids, or maybe cylinders with rounded caps, bound together by a thin web of glittering spars. The picture showed the object in profile, a dark spot that looked like an open cargo bay door near the bow. “How far out was this taken?” Precentor Butler asked, mentally trying to judge the size of the mystery jumpship.

Precentor ROM coughed. “Ah, according to reports the object is in Antallos orbit. MacLeod estimates an apoapsis of no more than five hundred kilometers.” Butler and the Precentor Martial choked, while the rest of the First Circuit looked at each other in confusion.

“I see,” the Primus said neutrally. “I take it this means something, Precentor Explorer Corps?”

“Sir,” Butler said, stopped, opened her mouth as if to say something, then plunged ahead. “Primus, the level of structure we see in an image taken at five hundred klicks means either it was spotted with high-grade telescopes the Antallos station doesn’t have, or the structure is _huge_.”

“That was MacLeod’s assessment, Precentor,” Precentor ROM said. “His staff estimate that the Fenspace ship is—roughly—four kilometers long.” The mood in the chamber got very tense indeed.

“Is it a warship?” the Primus asked.

Precentor ROM shook his head. “We’re still going over the data,” he said. “But we don’t believe so. The Fenspacers call it a supply ship—the official name is apparently _Megaroad_ for what that’s worth—and MacLeod’s observations haven’t picked out any obvious weapons ports. I should stress that this is all preliminary observations of course; it may be that the weapons are all on the sides of the ship we haven’t seen yet.”

“Precentor Explorer Corps, do you concur?”

Butler stared at the holograph. “I’ll have to read the full report to say for sure, Primus,” she said. “But for now I’ll agree with ROM’s conclusions. This might be a yardship like the Newgrange class, or some other sort of large cargo vessel.”

“A ship that big,” Myndo Waterly said absently. “The Inner Sphere hasn’t seen the like in centuries.”

“Or ever,” countered Precentor Atreus. “That thing’s twice the size of a Newgrange. Even if it’s mostly empty space it has to mass more than three million tons. The Star League _never_ built a ship that big.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Precentor Martial said. “The KF drive on that thing must be enormous. That or...” he trailed off.

“Or?” The Primus looked expectant. Precentor Martial shook his head.

“Not yet,” he replied. “Not until we have more data. A _lot_ more data.”

The Primus sighed. “Oh very well,” he said. “Now then, as events have shown the established order may be changing, but we still don’t know why or by whom. Precentor ROM, have you come to any conclusions?”

“Primus, the data support no conclusions as yet. We have hypotheses, none of which fit all the facts and the ones that come close are too... fanciful to be correct.”

“Humor an old man, Precentor.”

The spymaster flipped through his notes. “The _least_ outrageous hypothesis we have right now is the Fenspacers are an offshoot of the Belter culture.”

The Primus raised an eyebrow. “Belters, Precentor?” he asked. “I can see why you don’t wish to speculate.”

Precentor ROM shrugged. “However outrageous the implication, it does fit certain facts. The name they claim for themselves, for example: ‘Fenspace’ suggests they are not a planet-bound culture, eschewing habitable worlds in favor of constructed habitats. Take this new ship, the _Megaroad_ , as an example: a ship like this could easily be used as the equivalent of a small colony or outpost, moving from location to location within a single star system. The Fenspace home system might be full of hundreds or thousands of similar objects spread out over millions or billions of cubic kilometers.

“Consider this as well: the Fenspacers seem to have a fascination with Terran history ending roughly with the formation of the Western Alliance. Our records of the Belters suggest that they considered this period something of a golden age and something to emulate as much as possible. The last contact the Hegemony had with the Belters in fact was in the middle of such a cultural revival. The Explorer Corps—” the Precentor nodded to Butler “—has found multiple examples of small worlds in the fringes who revere pre-Alliance culture. The Fenspacers may be a more technologically-advanced offshoot of this tendency.”

“That’s all very interesting, Precentor,” Waterly said. “Many of the Fenspace ground forces don’t seem to share the same attitude according to MacLeod’s reports.”

“As I said, it doesn’t fit all the facts we have,” the Comstar spymaster agreed. “Our working hypothesis is that we’re seeing two separate cultures joined in mutual purpose. If the Fenspacers are indeed descendants of the Belters, the ground forces may be another party, perhaps refugees from the Outworlds Alliance. Neither the Periphery nor the Belt had any love for Terra, giving them common ground.”

“As fascinating as this is, Precentor,” the Primus said, “please humor an old man one more time and give me your _most_ outrageous hypothesis.”

The Precentor’s mouth went a little dry. “Ah,” he hemmed. “I’d rather not say.” The Primus favored his spymaster with a benevolent smile that said _you realize that I’m not going to let you off that easily, right?_

Waterly watched with a small thrill as one of the most frightening men in the Inner Sphere squirmed under the Primus’s gaze until he finally broke. “Primus,” the man sighed. “The anomalous technology the Fenspacers have shown us didn’t come from any Inner Sphere source, and to the best of our knowledge it isn’t Star League leftovers. The _only_ hypothesis that makes sense is that it is non-terrestrial and non-human in origin.” Which was a great load of words to avoid the lexicographical elephant in the room. The A-word had ruined many a promising career, and even if everybody in the room was thinking it the Precentor ROM would be _damned_ if he said it in front of the entire First Circuit.

“Well then,” the Primus said mildly. “That answers the who, perhaps. Do we have any hypotheses on the why?”

“At this point,” Precentor ROM said ruefully, “we’re not sure. The Fenspacers have broadcast their intent to operate Antallos as a neutral port, but we’re not so sure. This may be a prelude to a strike against the Inner Sphere.”

Waterly’s eyebrows went up. “Seriously, Precentor?”

“I don’t know to _expect_ it, Precentor Dieron,” the spymaster said. “It’s a possibility. Maybe they’re legitimately planning to be good neighbors but let’s not forget than their first interaction with the Inner Sphere was to invade and reduce a planet.”

“They were _provoked_ , Precentor.” Waterly rejoined. “They said so themselves: this Vorax person attacked them first. If pirates were mad enough to raid Terra, would you expect us to _not_ go after them in retaliation?”

“And that’s all well and good,” Precentor ROM said. “But they didn’t just _raid_ Antallos, they _took_ it. Raiding and conquering are two very different things, as I’m sure you understand.” Waterly bristled at the man’s tone. “Whatever their motives, the facts—”

“Don’t point to an invasion.” Precentor Martial’s tone brooked little argument. “Or at least nothing beyond Antallos. They took the city, yes, but if they were going to use Antallos as a staging base they wouldn’t have left the other settlements alone. They’d have garrisoned them or bombed them flat to prevent partisan attacks on their supply chain.”

Precentor Butler took the moment to jump in. “Also, I’d dispute that their first interaction was taking Port Krin,” she said. “Explorer Corps has evidence that the Fenspacers have been trading—freely, not stolen goods—with Periphery traders for almost a year now.”

Precentor ROM looked flabbergasted. “And why is _now_ the first time I’ve heard about it?” he demanded.

“My reports on possible Fenspacer activity have been forwarded to your office as well as the Primus,” Butler said blandly. “If your staff doesn’t deem them worthy of your attention, that’s not _my_ lookout.” The spymaster’s face went beet red, he opened his mouth only to be quelled by a sharp look from the Primus.

“Yes, well, that’s a side issue,” he said finally. “My point, Precentor Dieron, is that it’s my _job_ to look at all the angles, to find the underneath hiding beneath the underneath.”

“With all due respect for your work, Precentor ROM,” Waterly replied, “I wonder if you’re so busy chasing phantoms you can’t see the blindingly obvious.”

The Primus clapped his hands. “Well!” he exclaimed cheerily. “This has been rather enlightening but not otherwise productive. Let’s adjourn for the day, shall we? No doubt more shocking revelations will arrive tomorrow, so we shall return to our duties until then.” The lights in the First Circuit chamber went up and the assembled Precentors stood to leave. “Myndo, a moment further, please?”

Waterly waited until the others had left before moving to stand before the Primus’s seat. “Sir?”

“You were rather harsh with Precentor ROM today,” he said.

“That wasn’t my intention, sir.”

“Oh yes it was,” the Primus rolled his eyes. “He was patronizing you and you stomped him. Hopefully it’ll teach him some humility.” Waterly had no good reply to that. “Now obviously you have an opinion… and it would seem some support. I’d like to hear it.”

Waterly sighed. “The truth is, I don’t know. ROM’s right about one thing: all the data we have doesn’t add up to anything that makes sense. Maybe the Fenspacers are Belters, maybe they’re aliens, maybe they’re something even stranger. We don’t know, and sniffing around looking for _the underneath beneath the underneath_ ,” she sneered, “isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“Refreshingly honest,” the Primus replied. “Anything else?”

“We need to expand our contact with the Fenspacers,” Waterly said automatically. “Whatever they are, we can’t simply treat them like the Lords or pirates or neobarbs. They’re civilized and they have technology we can’t reproduce. There’s a risk in contact, but it’s also maybe the greatest opportunity the Order’s had in generations. We need to bring them into our orbit, or failing that keep them out of the Lords’ orbits.”

“I tend to agree, Myndo. Whatever the truth behind these people, they may be the greatest allies—or greatest enemies—Comstar could ever ask for.” The Primus nodded decisively. “Inform Precentor MacLeod that he’s being promoted effective immediately, and he should expect an increased staff and a station upgrade within the year.” He hummed thoughtfully, looking at a point somewhere over Waterly’s shoulder. “Also, have him have some quiet words with the adepts already there.”

Waterly blinked. “Sir?”

“Considering the situation in Port Krin is less, ah, _dangerous_ now that the Fenspacers are in charge, it might do our younger adepts some good to get out, see the world a little. Maybe make some friends. Nothing wrong with making friends, it certainly seems to be something the Fenspacers approve of.”

“Of course, sir,” Waterly smiled slowly. “I’ll have the orders sent out on the evening dispatch.”

“Very good, Myndo,” the Primus made a shooing gesture. “Now off with you m’dear, the Inner Sphere won’t run itself, after all.”

~***~

**Project Ozma Briefing, Avalon City, New Avalon  
20 December 3022**

Hanse Davion traced the ship’s outline with his finger. “So this is where our mystery ship comes from,” he said softly.

“So it would seem, Highness.” Quintus Allard replied. “Our agent’s reports are... a bit strange.” Which was putting mildly. The MIIO agent commanding the tramp jumper had managed to slip down to Port Krin long enough to file a report that was somewhere between awe, panic and confusion on a level Quintus hadn’t seen before in nominally sober agents. “I’d dismiss them as delusional or intoxicated most days but, well. Comstar News and Colonel Hansen’s reports corroborate enough that I can’t just ignore it.”

“These... Fenspacers have some impressive tricks up their sleeves,” Hanse said. “The mystery raider is, what exactly?”

“Some sort of planetary survey vessel according to our agent. If you look here,” Quintus flipped the images through to show an image of the Fenspacer mothership, “you can see what looks like two more as part of the relief party. They’ve been spotted flying over Antallos now and then, and I imagine they’re also checking out the rest of the system. As you can see, the markings aren’t the same: Latin letters on these instead of the Hebrew characters on the raider, the emblem on the left wing is different. And this is an interesting coincidence.” Quintus opened a large, heavy book to a specific spot and pointed at a picture. “See anything familiar?”

Hanse looked at the picture in the book, a white-winged aircraft mounted onto a complex set of rockets. “Quite the resemblance,” he noted. “What is it?”

Quintus smirked. “This, Highness,” he said, pointing at the book, “is a Western Alliance Enterprise-class space shuttle, a pre-fusion ancestor of today’s aerodyne dropships. The last ones were retired over a thousand years ago, and nobody knows where most of them are today.”

Hanse gave his chief of intelligence an odd look. “Please don’t tell me you’re suggesting that whoever these Fenspacers are, they retrofitted thousand-year-old spacecraft with advanced technology beyond the Star League for... what? Because they could?”

“It’s a theory, Hanse. I don’t think it makes any more sense than you but hell,” Quintus shrugged. “Maybe it’s all some sort of weird cultural thing. But there is a connection, I’m certain of it.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to ask,” Hanse replied. “Does our agent know where the Fenspacers are hiding?”

“I assume she does but doesn’t want to risk transmitting the coordinates via HPG,” Quintus said. “We’re going to need to get agents out to Antallos to debrief her personally if we want the information.”

“Do it. I want to arrange a surprise visit for this new Periphery player as soon as possible.”

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos  
3 February, 3023**

The Wolfnet agent arrived at Port Krin on a transport dropper from the Outworlds Alliance. His mission was to infiltrate the city and find out everything he could about this new arrival, the Fenspace Convention. Getting there was surprisingly easy: with the pirates cleared out of this region of space trade had started to pick back up again, and Port Krin’s return to “neutral jewel of the anti-spinward rim” meant more jumpships were willing to take the trip. The city’s renewal also meant population traffic picked up as refugees and other itinerants flocked to Antallos in search of a better life.

And so the agent picked his cover—a down-on-his-luck technician from the Federated Suns—boarded the ship and set off. He hadn’t seen much on the way in as a third-class passenger, but shipboard gossip suggested the Fenspacers were busy putting in charging stations, defensive platforms and even a large space station to act as a terminal for point-to-planet transport. It was, as far as the agent knew, more orbital activity than many Inner Sphere worlds had, and the Fenspacers did it blithely.

The need to know more about these people was paramount. Colonel Wolf had said no less, and the agent was even more determined to carry out his duty.

The trip from jump point to spaceport was uneventful, and when the agent finally stepped off the dropper into the Antallosian sun he was surprised by how neat and tidy the spaceport was. Especially considering how the place had been under fire and half-exploded not six months before. The new owners had obviously put a lot of energy into getting the place rebuilt.

It was only at the customs office that he finally hit a snag. The agent sat down in the chair provided and handed his bona fides over. The customs officer took one look at the ticket, then looked at the agent with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Your name’s Remus Lupin?” he said. “Honestly and truly?”

The agent tried not to sweat. It was his own damn fault, of course, he just had to be clever and it wasn’t like anybody in the Periphery had a classical education, right? So he sat there and wrestled down his fight-or-flight response until the immigration officer chuckled and said “Well, it’s a big universe, suppose somebody has to be. Alright then, Mr. Lupin, anything to declare?”

“Not as such, no.”

“Purpose of visit?”

“Long-term stay. I’m looking for work,” the agent added as sheepishly as he could.

“Lot of that going around,” the customs officer said absently. “What’s your business?”

“Mech tech.” Which was true enough; Wolf’s Dragoons liked their mechwarriors to at least know the basics of keeping a battlemech functional. “I’ve got a little seat time in IndustrialMechs too,” he added, again also just close enough to the truth.

“Huh. Well, Mr. Lupin, if you’ll take this.” The customs man held out a data tablet for Remus to take. It was a thin, fragile thing made of black plastic and to the agent’s eyes should’ve been worth as much as a groundcar in a place like Antallos. “If you’ll sign the document on top we’ll get your visa sorted. There’s a jobs board standing just outside the customs office if you’re looking for work, or you can use the tablet. Personally I’d recommend the tablet, it’s usually more up to date on who’s looking for what.”

Remus lifted an eyebrow. “You mean I can keep this?” he asked. The customs man shrugged.

“Tablet’s a cheap model for immigrants and long-term residents,” he replied. “Pretty sure there’s a hold full of the things on _Megaroad_.”

“Huh,” Remus said, nonplussed.

“Yeah well, the tablet’s preloaded with some basic stuff: map, couple tour guides, internet connection. The charge ought to be good for six months; by then you ought to either get a charger or a better tablet.”

“I see,” Remus said. “Well… thank you. This is a bit… surprising, considering the reception I’ve gotten elsewhere.”

“Yeah, well, that’s us. We’re trying to play nice with everybody.” The customs man paused. “You know what,” he said, taking the tablet back from Remus. “I’m gonna do you a solid.” He tabbed over to the map and highlighted a section just outside the inner city wall marked SPHERIC ALLEY. “This right here is the main Fen quarter,” he said. “If you ever want to have a private life for the rest of your stay you’ll keep at least three klicks between you and here at all times.”

“Okay,” Remus said, slightly baffled.

“On the other hand,” the customs man went on, “if you don’t want to have to pay for your drinks ever and have your choice of tail every night, then there’s a lot of apartment blocks in Spheric Alley that’d be happy to put up a Mr. Remus Lupin. Your call. Thank you and welcome to Port Krin.”

~***~

> “ _Once more came the Knights,_  
>  _Barcella’s chosen,_  
>  _To the Hill of Dreams._  
>  _And proud Fortuna_  
>  _Keeper of the Hill,_  
>  _Cried out unto them:_  
>    
>  ‘ _Hail! O Knights, faithful_  
>  _And strong, my vanguard_  
>  _Thy hour has come round!_  
>  _Take up thy banners_  
>  _Board thy ships and sail!_  
>  _The wheel is turning_  
>  _A new world awaits!_  
>  _Nova Cats no more,_  
>  _Thou art guardians_  
>  _Of the new future_  
>  _Where Myth becomes Fact,_  
>  _Light defeats Dark, the_  
>  _Impossible World_  
>  _Where Hope wins the day!’”_  
> 

~ The Nova Cat Remembrance, Passage 310

~***~

**Reykavis, Illyrian Palatinate  
19 November 3022**

The hill was still there, lit by the great spiral of the galaxy as always, but this time the gaggle of children were missing, the kites all tied to stakes set in the hill. At the peak the woman who’d haunted Alicia’s dreams for the last decade stood, hands clasped behind her back, cheerfully humming a song just beyond the edge of familiarity.

“You’ve done well,” she said.

“But we haven’t done anything!” Alicia protested. The dream woman smiled and shook her head.

“You’ve been just and honorable and defended the weak,” she replied. “You’ve been my knights, and that’s not nothing. Now the winds are starting to change. Can you feel it?”

Alicia felt the constant breeze shift direction, the kites dutifully swinging around. “I can.”

“It’s time for you to learn to fly. Your friends are already on their way. You must seek for us where the impossible happens.”

“Us?” Alicia repeated. This was the first time the dream had used a plural.

The woman nodded. “The foot of the hill is in the sand, and from there is the gateway to the Impossible Planet. The great work begins again. Ready?” The two of them rose into the sky, kites swirling around them as the rustling of cloth changed to a hammering noise that echoed in Alicia’s heart–

~***~

“ _Colonel? Colonel! Wake up! You’ve gotta see this!_ ”

Alicia woke from the dream to the sound of furious pounding. She blearily shrugged on a coverall and opened the door to impending chaos. The entire base was in an uproar, people running all over the place. The alarms weren’t wailing and it didn’t seem like anything was exploding, so Alicia decided it probably wasn’t an attack. “What’s going on?” she asked a passing Illyrian. “The Marians?”

“No, ma’am,” the man replied. “It just came in on Comstar News! Aliens are attacking the other side of the Sphere!”

“What.” Alicia might’ve said more but the Illyrian had already dashed on. She shrugged helplessly and followed the crowd into the base rec room, where the Knights and the local support staff were all clustered around the base’s prize League-vintage entertainment system. On the tank the title MYSTERY FORCE ATTACKS PIRATE WORLD underlined a scene of battlemechs and infantry deep in the thick of fighting... something. The field of view was thick with smoke and dust, making the attackers (defenders?) indistinct in the already-grainy holocam footage. Alicia’s eyes picked out infantry, something that looked like armor, a few flashing shapes that might’ve been fighters and a vaguely humanoid shape that must have been a battlemech, though why it was wearing a cape she had no idea.

“Colonel,” rumbled one of her bigger mechwarriors.

“Tavros,” Alicia said casually. “Busy day.”

“So it seems,” he replied.

“So,” she paused. “Aliens?”

Tavros gestured to the tank, where an aerospace fighter the size of a small dropship was divebombing a mech lance. “Not sure they’re _aliens_ exactly,” he mused. “They ain’t the slavering bug-eyed monsters I always thought aliens would be.”

Alicia leaned in close and asked in an undertone only he could hear. “Does it look like-?”

“Our, ah, relatives?” Tavros finished. He shook his head. “Uh-uh, I don’t see anything like that in their loadout. And there’s a lot of stuff that’s either seriously fucking advanced or seriously fucking impossible.”

“Impossible,” Alicia echoed. _Look for where the impossible happens._

“Ayep,” he said, pointing at the holotank. “Take that thing for instance. See anything wrong?” Alicia watched as the giant fighter hovered over the landscape, not quite seeing where her lieutenant was going with this, until it pivoted and suddenly it clicked.

“No drive plume,” she said quietly.

“Yeah. That thing has to be the size of a Leopard, holding steady like that ought’ve cooked those poor bastards already but nope.”

“That’s amazing,” Alicia said. _Where the impossible happens._ “That’s... oh. _Oh._ ”

“Hm?” Tavros hmm’d. Alicia’s eyes went wide.

“Where the impossible happens,” she said. “The foot of the hill is _in the sand_. That’s what it meant. We’re looking in the wrong place!”

“Colonel?”

“We need to _learn to fly_ and we’re on the _wrong side of the damn Sphere!_ ”

Tavros blinked, then started as if somebody had smacked him with a cattle prod. “You mean-?” he started to ask, but Alicia had already turned and left the rec room at high speed.

~***~

Dropship operations in friendly territory were often quiet affairs. As long as the spaceport was secure and the mechwarriors quartered off-ship, duty consisted of light maintenance and heavy drinking. So it was aboard the Green Knights dropper _Sir Tristan_ when Colonel Doran barged up onto the flight deck in a rush and demanded the duty officer’s attention. “How quickly can we get to Antallos?”

The duty officer gaped. “ _Antallos?_ Not asking for much, eh Colonel.” She thought it over. “If we leave right now we could get there... about this time next year maybe? We’re talking somewhere around fifty jumps, maybe a few less if we cut across uninhabited systems but that’s still a long way.”

“Dammit,” Alicia swore. “Right. Okay. Call _Caliburn_ and tell them to start setting up a route,” she ordered. “Once our contract with the Palatinate is up I want us ready to light out for Antallos ASAP.”

“Something come up, Colonel?” The officer asked, concerned. Alicia couldn’t help but laugh.


	14. Innocents Abroad

### Fenspace, 3020 - 3023

> “ _Picturesque meant_ _–_ _he decided after careful observation of the scenery that inspired Twoflower to use the word_ _–_ _that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumbledown. Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant ‘idiot’.”_ ~ Terry Pratchett,  The Colour of Magic (1983)
> 
> “ _The Twoflower project was a dream given form. Its goal: to establish stronger ties between the nations of known space. Three thousand Fen, wrapped up in a hundred thousand tons of metal traveling through the galaxy… all alone in the night.”_ ~ Opening narration,  Twoflower (3031)
> 
> “ _Looking back on it, it’s a goddamned miracle we didn’t get ourselves all killed.”_ ~ Ambassador Malaclypse Fnord, lead envoy UNS _Twoflower_ (3027)

~***~

_Excerpt from “ A People’s History of the Gernsback Expanse” by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3125):_

“Plans for official contact with the Inner Sphere had been in motion since shortly after the _Rogue Elephant_ departed Tellus. Knowing that, sooner or later, the people of the Expanse and the Inner Sphere would come into contact with each other the Fen and Tellurian governments decided that they would try and force the issue on their own terms. Rather than simply standing by and waiting for the Inner Sphere to come to them, the Expanse would instead go to the Inner Sphere. The deep thinkers among the leadership believed that this proactive approach would generate better results than waiting for the Spheroid nations to dig them out.

The proactive approach—somewhat prosaically named the Long-Duration Diplomatic Mission (LDDM)—was first floated in the smoke-filled rooms at Sphere-Con. Initially the plan called for a fleet of KF-capable starships, essentially a small armada of diplomatic vessels that could spread out and reach the Inner Sphere capitol worlds simultaneously. This proposal quickly fell apart as UN and Federation experts tactfully noted that an armada of starships would the worst possible optics to the Inner Sphere at large. After a long and often acrimonious debate, the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs agreed that a single starship making a long tour of known space would be a better introduction.

Near the end of Sphere-Con the United Nations put out an initial bid request for a traveling embassy, a starship designed to take the best and brightest of the Gernsback Expanse to the Inner Sphere when the time was right for the Fen to start winning hearts and minds...”

~***~

> “ _The engineer sighed as he studied those plans / and he read the demented designer’s demands / and he called in his techs / and he said to his crew: / ‘This guy seems to think that there’s jobs we can’t do / and parts we can’t build / so let’s give him a thrill. / We’ll build his machine and then send him the bill.’”_ ~ Jordin Kare, “The Engineer” (ca. 1988)

**Korolevgrad, Luna**  
**20 January 3020**

The beating heart of interplanetary socialism can be found in the small town of Korolevgrad, just off the western edge of the Kandor City crater rim monorail. In the middle of this bustling community is the town square, graced with a tall Gallifreyan mallorn in the central park and ringed with buildings made from shipping containers and lunar brick. In one of these buildings the half-dozen or so members of _Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buro-3_ , sometimes known as the Hasegawa Design Bureau, lounged in the central meeting area, waiting for the Chief Designer to arrive and impart the latest intel.

“...All I’m saying is,” engineer Aris Merquoni said, flapping her arms for emphasis, “we’re not going to get the Ga-15 replacement bid. Even if we _wanted_ it. We do freighters and prefabs for colonies, not death-dealing. And CentCom wants to keep all that stuff Farside if they can.”

“Well sure,” Jamie McGillicuddy replied, “but what else is there on the docket? I suppose we could be getting jumpship fever like the rest of the system but we haven’t pulled the BattleTech stuff off the library servers.”

“Why would we _want_ to pull the BattleTech stuff?” wondered Sharon Gajos. “Have you _seen_ those designs? My god, talk about ugly.”

Jamie glared at Sharon. “Not my point,” they said. “The point is if we were going to build a jumpship we ought to at _least_ have some of the available data cooking in the tanks, and we don’t. And it’s not like we have a working KF drive to build around anyway.”

“Maybe that’s what we’re waiting for,” Scott Armati suggested. “The KF teams are working on it, we ought to have a working design in the next couple months.”

“Yeah, but that’s a couple months from now, if ever. Why get us all in here at o’goddammit-thirty in the morning then?”

“I’m sure I can answer that,” Chief Designer Sora Hasegawa said breezily as she walked in, drawing the assembled engineers’ attention. “So you’re probably all wondering why I called you here this morning,” Sora began, to a handful of chuckles around the room. “Well, here’s the news: the UN finally dropped the RFP for the embassy project, and we’ve got to decide whether or not we want to take a crack at it.” She tapped her tablet and the big holotank in the middle of the room flashed to life:

> _January 18, 3020_
> 
> _TO: All Prospective Offerors_
> 
> _SUBJECT: Request For Proposal (RFP) STV091919812, Long-Duration Diplomatic Spacecraft Contract (LDDS)_
> 
> _The United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is pleased to release the RFP, number STV091919812, for the long-duration diplomatic spacecraft (LDDS) acquisition. The LDDS acquisition is the first phase in UNOOSA’s multi-phase long-term diplomatic mission to the Inner Sphere that meets UNOOSA safety requirements and standards. This replaced the Draft RFP issued at Sphere-Con on November 13, 2024. The RFP is a solicitation._
> 
> _All written questions and comments resulting from the Draft RFP and interim updates were reviewed, and where applicable, changes have been reflected in the RFP. Questions and answers regarding the Draft RFP have been posted on the UNOOSA Web site..._

Jamie whistled. “Not asking for much, are they?”

“First things first,” Sharon asked, “who are we fighting to get this?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if _everybody_ gets in on the act here,” Sora replied. “I think our main competition is going to be Starfleet CoE, Kuat and Greenwood.”

Aris nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. “They’ve got some of the biggest yards in the system, and some of the best construction crews.”

Scott nodded thoughtfully. “If Greenwood goes in they’re going to pimp the Island Three like it was going out of style,” he noted. “And they already gave _Megaroad_ to the defense committee, so that’s an automatic in.”

“Politics is one thing,” Sora said. “Engineering’s another. _Megaroad_ doesn’t have KF capability.”

“Is that important? They could retrofit it.”

“Maybe?” Scott frowned. “If I was a Greenwood engineer, I think I could do it. But I might end up ripping out everything that makes an Island Three worth using in the process. Greenwood massively overbuilt those things.”

“That’s a very good point,” Aris added. “KF mass-fraction is going to bite all of us in the butt, no matter the design.”

“You never know,” Sora countered. “Jade’s gang have been doing some interesting work on Project Marathon.”

“And of course you’re not just saying that because of maternal pride,” Sharon teased. Sora rolled her eyes.

“Maybe sixty percent, and we’re getting off track. We can look at KF alternatives later. What about CoE? What are they going to submit?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Jamie said. “They’ll float using a Connie. Specifically they’re going to propose using _Enterprise_.”

“ _Enterprise_ isn’t even remotely close to done yet,” Aris objected. Jamie nodded in agreement.

“Her hull’s mostly ready, but enough of the internals aren’t finished that they could swap out Fleet designs for KF gear without having to redesign the frame,” Jamie said.

“Yeah, I could see that,” Sharon agreed. “Mass-fraction’s going to be less of an issue for a Connie. If they repurposed maybe two-thirds of the engineering hull to KF, threw the rest into the nacelles... have to figure out if you could split the drive like that but that’s easy enough to field-test on a decommissioned Archer or something. Yeah, that sounds at least sort of viable.”

“The Constitution’s a small ship though,” Sora noted. “Especially if they have to strip down the engineering hull for a KF.”

“Yes,” Jamie said seriously. “Only three hundred meters long. The Connie’s practically _miniscule_.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Yes, it’s big on a human scale but it’s still about the same size as a smallish jumpship. There’s not a lot of room to work with for things like parasite docking, or smallcraft in general. Using a Constitution means crew transfer uses Type-7 shuttles or smaller. And to top it all off, Starfleet means a crew-heavy bird to begin with, so the contact team’s going to be smaller and more tightly packed in, especially if they’re reducing crew space for KF capability.” The engineering team suppressed a collective shudder at the thought of an overcrowded starship trying to engage in diplomacy.

“Right,” Aris said finally. “That leaves Kuat. They... probably don’t have any better idea of what they’re going to do yet either, but they’ve got enough people and engineers to brute-force a solution.”

“And then there’s us,” Sharon said. “What do we work with?”

“Well,” Sora said, “let’s define the parameters first off. The contract is for an ambassadorial ship, so we’re representing everybody, Fen and ‘Dane alike.”

“Which would mean no blatant callbacks to any one country or faction,” Aris noted. “We need to be as inclusive as possible.”

“Right,” Scott said. “And we’ve got to convince the Inner Sphere that we’re not just some gang of upjumped barbarians or Star League refugees. So the ship needs to be _impressive_ , not just in scale but style.”

Jamie nodded solemnly. “Something elegant. Classical, with roots in the old, old sci-fi stuff. Like it just fell out of Wernher von Braun’s fever dreams.”

Aris blinked. “That’s catchy, I like it.” she said.

“It ought to look like a jumpship, but plainly not a Spheroid one,” Jamie continued. “So we can’t just take one of the TRO designs and call it ours. That at least says ‘we’re _like_ you, but we aren’t _exactly_ you.’”

Sora hummed, picking up the holostylus. “Hm,” she said. “How about we start with something like this?” Her hands blurred, and a simple ball on a stick appeared in the tank. “A standard Bernal hab is bigger than most jumpships, but not so big that it’s immediately intimidating. And it’s light, mostly nanotube composites and light metals, so it slides in under the mass-fraction. We add engines at one end of the axle, a docking collar to the other and we’ve got a basic embassy.”

Sharon nodded. “I could see it,” she said. “Simple and elegant.”

“But we can do so much better than _that_ ,” Jamie said.

“Oh yeah. For one thing, kill the spin and use grav plates for the habitable sections. That maximizes internal space and makes the structure simpler and stronger.” Sharon pulled out her stylus and added to the design, changing the simple sketched axle into a thicker spine, the bearing where habitat sphere met axle becoming a smooth, tapered neck.

Jamie got their stylus out and dotted points along the designated ‘forward’ of the spine. “We could put in more docking capacity, four or five dropship collars instead of just one. Redundancy is always useful.”

“We were talking about small-craft for the Connie, right?” Sharon added. “Let’s enlarge the standard hab shuttlebay a little, give us some more options,” she said, doing so.

“Most of that spine is going to be empty space,” Scott said. “We could use the forward space for cargo, auxiliaries and crew quarters so we can use the interior of the sphere as the embassy proper. The aft spine could hold most of the KF drive, the reactor and all the essential logistics.”

“The CG would be a little weird, though,” Jamie pointed out. Scott shrugged.

“Enh, not any worse than trying to balance loads in a flying saucer. She’ll be a bit rear-heavy is all.”

“How about engines?” Aris put in. “A standard jumpship doesn’t need much in the way of realspace drive.”

“No,” Sora agreed. “And this one probably won’t be much different. But we ought to anyway.”

“Why?” asked Aris.

Sora grinned. “Because we _can_.”

“Yeah, okay, fair enough.” Aris sketched in four dropship-swallowing engine bells at the far end of the ship’s spine. “Let’s go with a Mark Six torch motor for realspace, and just to make it that much more impressive we’ll use a Russian-style multi-thrust chamber rig on the business end.”

“And then,” Sora said, “we give it a little _style_.” With a flourish Sora added strakes and fins along the ship’s long axis, giving the assembly a rakish flair.

The engineers stepped back and contemplated the design that they’d just brainstormed into life. “You know,” Scott said thoughtfully, “I like it. I think we’ve got a winner here.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “Very Collier’s Magazine looking, boss. Tom Corbett would be proud to call that a mothership.”

“Huh,” Sora said thoughtfully. “You know, we never did get around to building Winchell’s _Polaris_ like we were going to...”

“You think we’ve got a chance?” Sharon asked.

Aris shrugged. “It’s like GLaDOS always says,” she replied. “You never know until you test it.”

Sora nodded. “So let’s get to work,” she said.

~***~

  
_UNS Twoflower during her shakedown cruise, 3022. ([A. Kopala](http://adamkop.deviantart.com/), after photographs by C. Faget)_

 

_Excerpt from “ Flying Artwork: Spacecraft of the Handwavium Age (3020–3050)” by Hal Emmerich (Co-Dominium Boeing Press, New Syrtis, 3051):_

“UNS _Twoflower_ started as a collaborative project between two very different organizations. The ship’s plans came from the Hasegawa design bureau (OKB-3), a group of Federation naval architects whose democratic decision process and steadfast pacifism gave them gave them a certain ‘underground coffeehouse’ air in the world of Fen engineering. OKB-3’s chief designer, Soviet Red Fleet colonel Sora Hasegawa, was responsible for the revolutionary modular design of Stellvia Station, and her comrades in OKB-3 had also developed a number of popular freighters. Yet outside Federation circles the design bureau was relatively unknown.

The _Twoflower_ project would be OKB-3’s grand debut to the world outside the Federation Merchant Marine, and Hasegawa was intent to make sure that everything went right. ‘This spacecraft is intended to be our embassy to the greater galaxy and because of that it should be a representation of the best of us in all ways,’ she famously declared in her proposal. The ship would be a showcase for Fen technology and science as well as demonstrating the cultural wealth of Tellus and Fenspace.

Building the ship was left to John Henry Ironworks (JHI), an independent construction firm famous for efficient, cost-effective and timely construction, all of which was going to be necessary if the _Twoflower_ would be ready for the diplomatic mission. OKB-3 entered into an alliance with JHI specifically because the _Twoflower_ design called for a large habitat module, and JHI made their name on building the ubiquitous large habitat in the Gernsback Expanse. The Island One-class habitat, a 500 meter diameter spherical habitat that provided comfortable living space for up to 10,000 people, was the most popular mass-produced space station in the Expanse for years. The sheer size of the Island One made it popular during the post-Boskone boom, and JHI-built Island Ones could be found orbiting every major body in the Tellus and Chiron systems.

JHI’s spacecraft-building experience was considerably lesser, however. The firm had some success building a licensed design, the Cobra Mk.1 scout freighter, but the _Twoflower_ would be the firm’s first step into the realm of large vehicles. Many industry watchers wondered if JHI had finally overreached and would end up losing valuable contracts to competition like Greenwood or Kuat.

[](http://i.imgur.com/UEkcXIa.png)  
_General arrangement diagram of UNS Twoflower. (OKB-3 Archives, Korolevgrad)_

UNOOSA accepted the joint bid on July 17, 3020. JHI laid down the first keel members barely a month later, on August 18, and construction continued almost non-stop until 3022. There were several work delays during the construction period, the largest caused by the invasion of Tellus. The need to pull experienced spacers off the project for the Lagrange Defense Force, as well as the resulting cleanup and salvage operations in medium and high Tellus orbit forced work on _Twoflower_ to come to an almost complete halt during the winter of 3020.

The other major delay to _Twoflower_ ’s construction came from the rapid advance of technology. The original OKB-3 design called for a standard Kearny-Fuchida hyperspace engine with only minor modifications to the power train. In the spring of 3021 however, news came of a revolutionary new engine design, the Enhanced Kearny-Fuchida engine, or EKF. While untested at the time, the EKF promised to be a major game-changer in hyperspace travel, and OKB-3 quickly saw the potential in outfitting _Twoflower_ with the new engine, as noted in a September 2, 3021 memo to JHI:

> _There’s no better way to show off what we can do, and that we can do it with style, than to stick an EKF drive in the [ Twoflower]. First off, it lets us relax on the mass margins [JHI yard foreman Christine] Garvin’s been worried about. Second, it gives the diplomats a better timetable for their shenanigans. Lastly, a KF ship that’s not 90% KF drive by mass will let us show off more of our girl’s natural beauty when we take her out. We’re doing this to impress the Sphere after all… why not go all-out?_

JHI was understandably skeptical about what amounted to a near ground-up rebuild of the drive section, without even a functioning prototype. OKB-3, particularly Col. Hasegawa (whose daughter, as it turned out, was one of the lead engineers on Starfleet’s EKF project) continued to submit design changes and argue the point into the ground. Ultimately, after months of back-and-forth haranguing on the subject JHI gave in: _Twoflower_ would have her original KF drive replaced with EKF Drive Module #002, the second prototype engine fresh from the stands at Utopia Planitia…

(…) _Twoflower_ ’s shakedown cruise was intended to test primary systems and make sure that they—particularly the EKF engine—worked correctly before handing the ship over to XCOM for final crewing and the selection of the diplomatic staff. The ship cruised from parking orbit in the Tellus-Luna L5 region to Callisto, before heading out of the ecliptic to the Sol zenith point, jumping from there to the nadir point to test the engine and charging systems, then a first interstellar jaunt to the Chiron system as a grand finale. _Twoflower_ expressed a number of minor quirks during the flight, the most severe of which was an excess of images stored by the optical sensors. The ‘holiday snaps’ quirk, as it quickly became known, would prove an endless source of frustration for _Twoflower_ ’s crew, as well as a major source of data for Fen intelligence officers…”

~***~

_Excerpt from “ What We Did On Our Holiday: The Twoflower Expedition In Their Own Words” edited by Meryl Campbell (Gondor Free University Press, Arda, 3091):_

“As the _Twoflower_ took shape, the big question emerged from the ship’s bulk: who was going to get to go on the mission? The engineers had built _Twoflower_ as big and impressive, which meant there was plenty of room for passengers and crew. XCOM and the UN had final say on the actual diplomatic party—the politicians who would engage the Inner Sphere nations during _Twoflower_ ’s year-plus-long mission—but that left a great deal of space for secondary staff, dependents, hangers-on and tourists to tag along.

In a 3041 interview XCOM commander Cynthia Luckwold admitted ruefully that choosing the flight crew was the “easy part” of the mission, and yet “it was still one of the hardest decisions we ever had to make.”

> _We were going to need a lot of crew, that much was certain. Twoflower hadn’t sparked an AI during construction. This was kind of a mixed blessing—liveships can be a royal pain in the arse to work with at times, but at the same time having a command-grade AI on overwatch means you can drastically reduce crew requirements. A lot of ship’s systems were fairly well-automated through handwavium or non-sapient expert systems, but that left a series of large gaps to fill. So we set out to find us a crew._
> 
> _We started with an experiment, setting out a few understated notices on certain social media sites. We wanted to gauge interest, at the very least get a baseline before we started the hiring process, and the response we got was frankly amazing. Even the vaguest hint of a mission to the Inner Sphere crashed our internal email server! It was just insane. Everybody wanted to go, and I mean everybody._
> 
> _That gave us a fairly useless baseline, so we ended up making a few decisions that proved a little controversial. The first one was we wanted as fair a representation of Fenspace onboard as possible, so we set factional quotas. It was a bit ham-handed, yes. I’m not going to deny that we could’ve gone through that part of the process much better. In the end though, I think it gave us a better mix of people going along than simply staffing with Starfleet or Republic Navy personnel._
> 
> _The second decision was… well, let’s say I’m still getting hate mail from it today. I advised the hiring board that high-visibility biomods shouldn’t be part of the main crew. A lot of people in Fenspace, especially the ones who don’t deal with non-Fen on a regular basis, tend to forget that what we consider ‘normal’ isn’t the same thing as what others consider ‘normal.’ Biomods were just barely starting to percolate into Antallos at that point, and as Twoflower came online there were some nasty incidents in Port Krin involving catgirl mods. There were political considerations, yes—certainly the Council didn’t want us to come off as mutants and monsters to the otherwise-baseline Spheroids during negotiations—but my personal thought through the whole ordeal was the safety of the Twoflower’s passengers. I didn’t want some poor fool lynched during a stopover because he didn’t look human. In the end we shaded that line a bit more than I was comfortable with, particularly with the security staff, but I still stand by that decision…_
> 
> _(…) The ship’s engineers were provided by the yards for the most part, which I signed off on because they were the ones who knew the main systems inside and out. My main worry was the jump engine, which we’d only barely tested in the real world before putting one inside Twoflower, so even if the Soviets and John Henry hadn’t offered to send engineering teams along I would’ve demanded them. EKF proved to be one of the more reliable parts of the ship, but at the time I was far more concerned about the damn thing failing and wrecking our mission right then and there. It admittedly gave us a little relief, not having to staff engineering along with everything else…_
> 
> _(…) For the primary security staff we ended up choosing the Special Operations Group, a team that individually had done some impressive work during the Boskone War then pulled together in the post-war as one of our better special forces units. The critical factor in that decision was their roots as BattleTech fans: it gave them a grounding in the general knowledge of who not to shoot, which the Council decided was of utmost importance for the diplomatic mission. I had concerns that their cohort was biomod-heavy, especially their commander, Colonel Bostwick, who’d undergone some fairly radical changes during the Boskone War. We ended up reaching a compromise that, as I understand it, ended up being honored in the breach more than a few times: the radical biomods would remain onboard Twoflower during the mission or otherwise under cover as a backup in case all hell broke loose, while those who could at least pass for human in armor would accompany the shore parties for close defense. Bostwick didn’t like it much, and I dare say I don’t blame him at all for that, but again my primary concern was safety…_
> 
> _(…) The ship’s smallcraft bay was an embarrassment of riches. JHI had based it on the standard parking structure for one of their Island One habitats, so the thing was frankly huge. Add to that additional craft stowage for things like flying cars and single-seat craft in the forward ‘neck’ and we could carry everything we needed in terms of touring craft. Most of the shore parties would end up carried to and fro by a pair of Dragon dropships generously donated by SpaceX, but for everything else we used smallcraft. Mostly exterior maintenance vehicles, but we had a few jokers. One was an OV-200, the Columbia, who was assigned to the mission as official documentarian. The other was a Normandy, the SSV Little Bighorn. Little Bighorn was a block-three Normandy, one of the first to incorporate lessons from the pirate invasion, and we expected that it could handle any attacks on Twoflower or the dropships if needed…”_

~***~

_Excerpt from Wikileaks file dump dated 12 April 3026:_

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 USXCOM 0039

NOFORN SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05-17-3032 TAGS: FC, SMOF, XCOM, ISN, TF

SUBJECT: PROJECT TWOFLOWER BRIEFING

Classified By: XCOM Councilor (XC) Alexander Pierce, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1\. (C) SUMMARY. The XCOM Council met in order to discuss the upcoming diplomatic mission by the UNS Twoflower to the Inner Sphere. The ship physically is meeting all required milestones, while crewing the vessel has proved to be somewhat more difficult than previously estimated. SMOFcon has insisted on their leadership for the mission, and has suggested that certain elements of the Convention may leave the Twoflower project in protest if their demands are not met.

Twoflower Progress Good, Ready to Go By Winter

\-------------------------------------------------

2\. (C) The XCOM Council met on May 7 in the council chambers at Pavonis City, Mars. Also attending the meeting were XCOM Commander Cynthia Luckwold, UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) representative Philip Danchekker, SMOFcon Chairman Theophrastus Lovegood, Galactic Republic Chancellor Seyung Yu-Jin and Federation Ambassador Malaclypse Fnord. Unlike previous XCOM Council meetings this took place in normal lighting conditions with all members physically present, which may be a first for the Council since its inception. (Note: The Convention playing theatrical games even in private is expected. That otherwise-sober members of the international community have taken to them so quickly is disturbing in its implications. End Note.)

3\. (C) The meeting started with a briefing on the UNS Twoflower. Commander Luckwold reported on the current readiness of the ship and its expected readiness for the excursion to the Inner Sphere. The ship is still undergoing environmental systems work in preparation for a launch and shakedown NLT June 30. Luckwold noted that all current milestones are being met and the ship should be ready for the diplomatic mission by late winter, providing the shakedown goes well.

S E C R E T SECTION 02 OF 03 USXCOM 0039

Convention Willing to Play Ball on (Almost) Everything

\-------------------------------------------------

4\. (C) XC Pierce reiterated the United States's commitment to the Twoflower project and agreed that the chosen itinerary and operational profile are acceptable to U.S. interests. He said that the United States is willing to work with the other Titanicon signatories to ensure a proper diplomatic staff is chosen for the Inner Sphere mission. At this point the meeting descended into the details of staffing.

5\. (C) The Convention, via SMOFcon, had no significant objections to UNOOSA Danchekker's suggestions on basic staff and attache-level diplomats. The Council nations have each been invited to send a full Ambassador, but to date only the U.S., Russia and China have expressed any interest in sending overt observers along with Twoflower. When deciding on an overall mission leader, SMOFcon rejected XC Pierce's suggestions of U.S. Ambassador to the Convention Jeffrey Allen or an UNOOSA-selected representative.

6\. (C) SMOFcon, particularly Seyung, is pushing Ambassador Fnord as their choice for mission lead. Fnord's reputation as a political extremist suggests that SMOFcon—or the Galactic Republic—is trying to get him out of the system for their own reasons. (Note: For examples of Fnord's antics refer to the 2008 Fox News incident, the 2014 Project Artemis hearings, the 2016 Red Senshi scandal, the 2020 Autonomists’ Ball or the 2022 annexation of the Sozvezdie Soviet. End Note.) Seyung was particularly insistent that Fnord's record as both diplomat and scientist made him the ideal mission lead. XC Pierce and XCOM German representative Renata Fried objected, leading Seyung to hint that the Republic might "forge [their] own path" if Fnord wasn't given command of the mission.

7\. (C) Fnord himself seemed more bemused by the argument than anything else. When asked, he said that he would be willing to accept the post if offered freely but was equally happy to stay back in Convention space. He noted that "regardless of the Council's decision I won't suggest the Federation back out of the project." Seyung seemed a bit taken aback by Fnord's statement and hastily reassured the Council that the Republic remained committed to XCOM and the Twoflower.

S E C R E T SECTION 03 OF 03 USXCOM 0039

Comment

\------------------------------------------------

8\. (C) The council meeting highlights one of the continuing frustrations in dealing with Fen governments: their indulgence in recreational Byzantine politics makes any attempt at group decision a bewildering series of power plays. Seyung Yu-Jin's insistence on sending Malaclypse Fnord on the Twoflower mission is clearly an attempt to remove him from his primary power base for her own reasons, whatever they might be. Fnord likewise used this insistence to make Seyung look like a secessionist in front of SMOFcon and the XCOM Council, a move that will likely have repercussions down the line. (Note: It is also not outside the realm of possibility that the entire incident was staged between the two parties for unknown purpose, but to travel down this path is to succumb to rampant paranoia. End Note.) At no point was the issue of who leads the Twoflower mission settled.

9\. (C) That being said, I am willing to tentatively endorse Seyung's proposal to put Fnord in charge of the mission. His politics are an issue, but this may work to our advantage: Fnord is a bomb-thrower by nature and profession. Better to have him throwing his bombs outside the Event zone, where they might do damage to our rivals and enemies, than throwing them constantly inside our sphere of influence in a time of crisis. PIERCE

~***~

**Port Krin, Antallos**  
**28 May, 3023**

Gretchen Weiss sometimes wondered not just how she got this duty, but why she’d accepted it in the first place. The translation from _commando_ to _spy_ to _revolutionary_ to _messenger girl_ had been more than a little abrupt. Even a little grating, that somebody with her skill set was reduced to, in her eyes, not much more than a glorified postal worker. But duty was duty, and XCOM for all its problems paid the bills very nicely.

The last time she’d gone to the Comstar center, the situation had been rather more urgent, what with the invasion, the explosions and all that bother. This time things went considerably smoother, her bonafides confirmed by the Adept at the front desk and quickly ushered into a meeting room to wait for the Precentor. Who, as it turned out, wasn’t long in coming, another side benefit of being the new lords of Antallos.

“Ah, Miss Weiss,” the Precentor said as he swept into the room. “You grace us with your presence once again. What may Comstar do for your people today?”

“Precentor MacLeod,” she said mildly. Her interactions with the top Comstar man had been brief, a few words the morning of the invasion and not much more. “We’d like to send a message. High priority to the capital worlds.”

MacLeod smiled wryly. “Of course, Comstar is always happy to aid in high-level discourse. Do you have the message?” Gretchen pulled a folded paper out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. The paper read:

**THE FENSPACE CONVENTION**

in association with

**THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF OUTER-SPACE AFFAIRS**

wishes to announce

**THE DIPLOMATIC EVENT OF THE DECADE**

the upcoming voyage of the United Nations Starship

**TWOFLOWER**

which will undertake a **DIPLOMATIC TOUR** of

**THE CAPITALS OF THE INNER SPHERE**

along with stops in the **GREATER PERIPHERY NATIONS**

beginning **THIS SUMMER**

**LUTHIEN**

AUGUST 1st - AUGUST 29th

**THARKAD**

SEPTEMBER 25th - OCTOBER 23rd

**ATREUS**

NOVEMBER 13th - DECEMBER 11th

**CANOPUS IV**

DECEMBER 26th - JANUARY 23rd

**SIAN**

FEBRUARY 7th  - MARCH 6th

**TAURUS**

MARCH 24th - APRIL 21st

**NEW AVALON**

MAY 12th - JUNE 9th

**TERRA**

JUNE 27th - JULY 25th

**ALPHERATZ**

AUGUST 30th - SEPTEMBER 27th

 

MAY LORD XENU BLESS AND KEEP THE CONVENTION AND THE UNITED NATIONS

Gretchen watched Comstar’s man read the flyer, and took a bit of pleasure in how nonplussed he looked at his first glimpse of Fen diplomatic communications. “My,” he finally said. “This is… certainly ambitious of you.”

“Really?” she said, cocking her head and keeping up a poker face. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, allowances must be made,” MacLeod said. “Certainly I don’t think the Inner Sphere had seen a people with your… _flair_ since, oh, the Camerons at least.” He chuckled. “You’re certainly going to put the cat amongst the raravis with this maneuver.”

Gretchen raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I don’t think that’s complimentary,” she said drilly. MacLeod waved the remark off.

“Perish the thought, Miss Weiss,” he said. “Standard diplomatic rates are acceptable, yes? When will your ship be leaving home port?”

“Early next month, and it’ll arrive here first. Or at least that’s what they told me in the dispatch.” _And please God if you’re real don’t let him notice the dates on that flyer, or at least don’t let him say anything about it._

“I see. Would your superiors mind if I added that to the dispatch? I don’t mean to alter anything in the announcement, of course, that would be a violation of our neutrality. I only mean to add some clarification for those not familiar with Fenspacer theatricality.”

Gretchen eyed the man. Granted, the big brains back home were sometimes a bit too in love with their own cleverness. On the other hand, letting Comstar add annotations to their dispatches… “If anybody has a problem understanding the message,” she said, adding _which will be most if not all of them_ in her head, “they can ask the Port Krin offices for clarification. General Rocha and Governor Carter are already briefed.” MacLeod smiled a little “well, had to try right?” smile and nodded, stowing the paper away in his robes.

~***~

Some time after the Fennish woman had left the building, MacLeod took the flyer out and studied it again. Eccentric in that particular way they had of course, but the content and context were quite straightforward. His eyes drifted to the top of the paper, where a small timestamp marked the sent and received date. “Now that is interesting,” he mused aloud. “System, begin recording a message for the First Circuit, priority-2, hash code MacLeod zulu-echo-bravo-eight-one-three:

“Attached to this message is the Fenspacer’s declaration of intent to tour the Inner Sphere on a diplomatic mission to the Successor Lords and the Periphery Lords. While this is of import in itself, please note in particular the enhanced image of a hardcopy handed to me by the Fen messenger. This suggests that Fenspace has some form of faster-than-light communications not involving ships nor HPG generators. As the delegation appears to be headed to Terra as part of their tour, it is my recommendation that the following steps be taken…”

~***~

**The Triad, Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth**  
**8 June 3023**

Melissa looked at the route traced on her map of the Inner Sphere. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Misha, when do the Fen leave Luthien?”

Misha glanced at the flyer. “It says here the 29th of August.”

“And they get _here_ at the end of September, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Luthien’s around four _hundred_ light years from Tharkad. If we got on a jumpship right now and headed to Luthien it’d take us three months or more to get there. And that’s assuming we went in as straight a line as possible; if we stuck to inhabited systems the trip might take even longer.”

“But this Fen ship is making the trip in a month flat,” Misha replied, light dawning in her eyes.

“ _Exactly._ ” Melissa said, scribbling on the Wall of Truth. “They have to have something that bypasses ordinary KF drive restrictions. Maybe it’s some sort of hot-charge system. Or maybe they’ve bypassed KF entirely and they’re using short-range wormholes. Or a realspace FTL drive! I remember reading about that during the UFO crisis, there was some theoretical work done back in the Terran Alliance by a Dr. Alu... Alu-something. Alucard maybe, I forget. What if the Outsiders can just point their ships in any direction and _boom!_ Off they go without having to worry about charging from the local star!”

“You remember you need to tell the Archon about this,” Misha pointed out gently, hoping to stall Melissa’s speculative ranting before it got too far off track.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, right, naturally. Mom’ll need to hear this as soon as possible. But consider the possibilities if we could get our hands on whatever they’re driving this _Twoflower_ of theirs with. This could change the face of the galaxy as we know it.” _Oh no,_ Misha thought. _God, no, please don’t tell me she’s going to..._

“Misha,” Melissa Steiner said with a wild grin. “I have a _cunning plan_.”

~***~

**UNS _Twoflower_**  
**High Subic Bay, Sol System Zenith Point**  
**10 June 3023**

Once only a crazy person would build anything at right angles to the solar ecliptic. That was well before the Kearny-Fuchida era sort of stumbled over the system. Now the zenith and nadir points were incredibly active zones as the jumping-off points for Fenspace’s bold new era of interstellar colonization. The natural jump points were surrounded by stations and automated satellites keeping watch on the point from a safe distance. Shuttles large and small streamed between the stations, carrying a steady flow of people and cargo from Earth, Luna, Venus and Mars to waiting jumpships and vice-versa. A squadron of wedge-shaped ships slowly orbited the mass of transit and commerce, ready to pounce should something unfriendly appear at the jump point.

The polished steel and aluminum bulk of UNS _Twoflower_ drifted quietly at the port’s edge, anchored to a temporary berthing station. The ship’s exterior was abuzz with activity: today was the day that the passengers and crew would embark for their year-and-a-bit-long journey across the Inner Sphere. Transports hauling supplies and everybody else landed in the forward deck and took off again, a constantly moving dance of the longshoremen.

Inside _Twoflower_ the motion was no less hectic as the insanely huge amount of _stuff_ that three thousand people needed to survive in deep space for a year and change was offloaded and stuck in the appropriate places. Anything that wasn’t absolutely and utterly mission-critical _no excuses_ ended up stowed in the forward hold, while everything else (of which there was way more than anybody had expected) ended up in the main passenger compartment. Thankfully, _Twoflower_ ’s passengers were riding inside the cavernous space of a Bernal sphere so this wasn’t as big a clusterfuck as it could’ve been.

The passenger sphere had been carefully laid out and landscaped by John Henry Ironworks. The finished work vaguely resembled a small town from somewhere in the middle of Mars, complete with underground apartment blocks and aspen saplings lining the long road running along the sphere’s equator. The sunline was shining, the birds were still getting used to the inverted gravity field, the fish farm was bubbling happily and _Twoflower_ ’s passengers hauled their luggage into their new homes.

~***~

Up on the lawn of one of the passenger bungalows, one of the passengers took the opportunity to enjoy the artificial day. With her husband busy down in the “town” section of the habitat and her wife busy elsewhere in the ship, Athena Weatheral had unpacked everything worth unpacking the first day and then, with nothing better to do, decided to get a workout in.

Dressed in a gi and her hair tied back, Athena went through a series of basic combat moves. Most of them lacked the _punch_ she was familiar with when working on Luna; artificial gravity threw her ki just enough out of whack that things didn’t work quite like they should have. Attacks that elsewhere might have combined finesse with devastating power ended up no better than something the average martial artist might let loose in practice.

It was just downright annoying.

Still, Athena went through her daily routine. She might not be able to do much aboard Twoflower, but the joy of the mission was stopping over at dozens of different worlds. The opportunity to try out the ki of an entirely new world had snared her the moment the mission had come up. It was literally the chance of a lifetime and she’d have been an utter fool not to do it.

She concentrated, throwing great sweeping attacks out at a host of imaginary enemies, and imagined what it would be like to feel the energies of hundreds of inhabited planets. Would it be significantly different from the Fen norm? Did the presence of humans on a world for centuries make any difference to the planet’s natural ki? Athena had no idea, and she couldn’t wait to find out.

~***~

_Twoflower_ ’s engineering spaces were more claustrophobic than the ship’s size and bulk might have allowed. Most of the space aft of the main habitat sphere was full of engine, the huge and unwieldy machines that allowed jumpships to flaunt relativity. Most of the rest was filled with the arcane instruments of Fen technology that kept the lights on, the air and gravity running and the ship’s mighty (and superfluous) torch drive lit. A maze of twisty engineering corridors, all alike, connected the kilometer or so of engineer’s country with the main control center, a spacious room where most of the engineers spent their time monitoring everything.

At the moment the entire engineering staff stood at attention waiting for their leader, chief engineer and Chief Designer of the Twoflower, to address them. Colonel Sora Hasegawa, Soviet Red Fleet, resplendent in the standard duty uniform of tied-off coveralls, faced her geek army and started her speech.

“Comrades!” she said with great self-importance. “It’s an honor to speak to you today, and I’m honored to sail with you on the maiden voyage of Fenspace’s most recent accomplishment. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary—the laws of physics.” She paused. “And that’s the last _Red October_ reference I’m going to make this trip, so you’re welcome.”

The engineers chuckled, and Sora continued on in a more normal tone of voice. “Some of us have been with our girl since the keel was laid down. A lot of us came in as construction progressed. We were all here for the flight test, and thanks to our good work _Twoflower_ passed trials with flying colors. Now we’re going to take her out and do the job she was built to do.

“We’re going deep into bat country on this trip; there’s no real guarantee that if something breaks we’ll be able to fix it. Or that we won’t get chased out of somewhere by people with lots of guns. Now, we’re just engine rats,” she said ruefully. “Most of this is going to be up to the captain and the diplomats to handle. Or the security guys if it gets bad. So we’ll let them handle it: _our_ job is make sure that the skipper and the ambassador and the marines all have a place to come back to at the end of the day. We’re going to take good care of our girl, and she’s going to bring us home no matter what.

“Any questions?” Sora scanned the assembled engineers. “Good. Sermon over. Everybody to launch stations, please. We’re going to pick up the count at jump-minus six hours and begin prepping the helium tanks for KF prechill and drive startup as per procedure 132-Delta...”

~***~

All ships, star- or otherwise, have a control center where the captain and the duty officers can do everything they need to to drive the ship where it needs to go. _Twoflower_ was naturally no exception, though the nature of the beast meant that the mobile embassy’s bridge was a little different from the usual design. _Twoflower_ ’s command center consisted of an unassuming building on a terrace inside the habitat sphere. Inside the perfectly-ordinary office building the ship’s command crew sat at Starfleet-style bridge, undergoing the series of checks needed to get underway.

“Captain, engineering reports systems look good, we’ll be go for launch on our expected window.”

“Very good,” the captain replied. “Helm, set destination for Gliese 233.” The small K-type star was uninhabited, not on anybody’s target list for colonization but it was close to the Event boundary on roughly the same heading as the route to Antallos. If anything went wrong with the engine—that didn’t involve the ship simply imploding into a singularity or vanishing into hyperspace—Gl 233 would serve as a functional safe harbor until rescue forces from Fenspace proper could reach them. If everything went according to plan, the next three-and-a-bit jumps would start and end in open space until they reached Antallos, picked up the last of the crew and started the grand tour.

A year and a half round-trip of the Inner Sphere, not quite the longest interstellar voyage in Fen history, but close enough to be a little daunting.

“Nav targets are set,” the helmsman reported. “We’ll be ready to jump on time.”

~***~

The diplomatic team had commandeered a set of office buildings near the habitat equator as their home base, and as the crew and passengers filtered into the ship the diplomats unpacked their paperwork and started setting up for the long haul. Aides ran to and fro making sure their bosses’ stuff ended up in the right office, though at least for the first jump and the trip to Antallos the diplomats were largely passengers. The real work wouldn’t begin until they’d left Port Krin on their way into the Inner Sphere.

With that cheery thought in mind, Ambassador Mal Fnord went about his business in relative leisure. The bulk of his work involved making sure his computers all had secure access to the ship’s ansible communicator, unpacking and stowing a complete set of BattleTech reference books on the provided shelves, setting up family photos on his desk and playing a little bit of Minesweeper. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. “C’mon in,” Mal called. In stepped a six-foot werewolf in fatigues.

“Ambassador,” rumbled the head of the security delegation.

“Colonel Bostwick,” Mal replied. “Your people settling in?”

“For the moment. Right now we’re hoping we didn’t leave something behind, or the oven on. You know how it is.”

“True enough,” Mal said sagely. “You always forget something just before a long trip starts. The trick is not to worry about it.”

“Mm,” Bostwick hummed. He seemed to hesitate for a second. “Ambassador, can I speak freely?”

“Sure.”

“Do we actually _know_ what the hell we’re doing here?”

Mal blinked. “I’m actually impressed that it took you this long to question that,” he said mildly.

Bostwick spread his hands in a well-what-do-you-know gesture. “I mean, no offense sir,” he said. “I get that SMOFcon has a plan of some sort, it’s just that... engaging the Inner Sphere like this, with just diplomats and a ship with no battlemechs feels weird. Wrong, even.”

“Ah,” Mal replied. “This is the BattleTech player talking, not the soldier.”

“Maybe a little of both. Will Rogers always said diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock. I keep thinking we’re forgetting the biggest rock when it comes to the Inner Sphere. I’ve been a fan for a long time and the Sphere is...” Bostwick trailed off, trying to find the right words. “It’s a political rat’s nest like we’ve _never_ seen before. Worse than the ‘danes or Boskone, and we’re walking in practically unarmed and saying we come in peace?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re _unarmed_ ,” Mal protested. “After all, we have you and your people, and _Little Bighorn_ has a persuasive argument if somebody tries something. But...” he shrugged. “You’re not wrong. This whole thing is a clusterfuck _ne plus ultra_ , and the plan’s risky. Risky and potentially very stupid. But nobody at SMOFcon has a better alternative. So we play the hand we’re dealt. And, y’know, I’ve got faith.”

“Faith,” the wolfman repeated dubiously. “Faith... isn’t that valuable in the Inner Sphere.”

“That’s the wargamer talking, Colonel,” Mal tsk’d. “I believe that we’ll find more good in the Inner Sphere than the books might say is there. Hell, we’ve found the better angels of human nature in unexpected places so far.”

“If you say so, sir.” Bostwick replied. Mal briefly considered then abandoned the Vader reference as overdone.

“How about we make a wager on it, Colonel?”

Bostwick blinked. “On... finding decent people in the Inner Sphere? That seems like a sucker bet, sir. I may be military but that doesn’t make me stupid.”

Mal rolled his eyes. “Nothing that broad. Let’s say, oh, a hundred sols on us having good relations with all the major powers when all this is over with. That’s the goal, after all.”

Bostwick thought it over. “Faith is one thing,” he said. “But my job is to keep your head attached. You’re on, Ambassador.”

~***~

_Excerpt from lecture series “ Love and Hate in the Time of Greyface” by Sun-Tzu Liao (3081):_

“The midsummer of 3023 brought with it the _Twoflower_ , and our world changed in its wake. _Twoflower_ represented the first major step by the Tellurians out into the wider galaxy, even though their technology and ideas had already been leaking since the moment of first contact. It was in a very important way the first time Fen represented themselves to the world instead of hiding behind Periphery traders or being the mysterious lords of some faraway port city. By 3023 everybody within a few hundred light years of the Inner Sphere had heard of the Fen, but that was mostly rumor and story. For the first time, people were going to get a chance to see the Fen in person, in something like their natural habitat.

This is why in the popular culture we remember _Twoflower_ as a defining moment in galactic history on par with such moments as the Fall or the Kerenskyite Wars. While the Accelerando had been happening all around us for several years before the mission, things only really begin to kick into high gear _afterwards_ , which is where the ship’s infamy truly comes from. In the vast majority of these instances Twoflower and her party of Fen diplomats weren’t the initiators, but rather catalysts for long-standing issues that would have eventually come to a head even without Fen intervention. As an example—which we’ll get into more depth later—while the Capellan Revolution, the Quellist rebellions and the Co-Dominium might _not_ have happened without the Accelerando, the Lyran civil war and the great Kurita-Davion conflict of the Last Succession War most likely would have, because their roots lay in history significantly predating the Gernsback Event.

In the next lecture we’ll be discussing the initial seeds planted in the Accelerando and how the Twoflower mission watered them and helped grow the world we know of today…”


End file.
